Mountains of Paperwork & Ducks

We’ve signed for the flats! It was exhausting. Instead of signing for the building as a whole, we had to sign for each individual apartment. And in France it’s not just deeds. We have to initial every page of the energy certificate, the termite study, the lead study and the asbestos study. My hand hurts- but otherwise I’m over the moon. I’ve spent too much time in the past focused on things of a rather selfish nature- and others that didn’t really matter at all. It’s nice to be personally involved in doing something constructive.

So anyway, the apartments are great, which really is not the case in the rental price range we’re aiming to offer. All of them have double entrance doors

 

and bright rooms with big windows and reasonable floors.

 

and well, everything is nice and clean and dignified. One of the renters planted four ceramic ducks in her garden- but that’s her prerogative and none of my business. 

Apart from repainting, later this year we’ll hopefully also have the time to install new kitchens and update the bathrooms. Nothing fancy, it’ll be Ikea/Leroy Merlin, but more attractive than what’s there now. Decent homes for people on a budget- that should be guaranteed by the law, but as it isn’t we’re going to see what we can do in our very small way. Mike has set our standard for buying as: the properties have to have the potential to be nice enough that we could have considered living there at some point in our lives. I know that sounds terribly subjective, but it’s not in our minds. One just knows when they walk into a home if it can be made into something pleasant or not.

In other news we were recently invited to dinner by the owners of La Villa de Mazamet which is a few streets down from us. SUPERB. I’ll write about that later, but here’s what their place looks like: