Hell Week

Here is a picture of our luxurious hotel room. Every morning we enjoyed a tasty breakfast of chicken nuggets, scrambled eggs, noodles, and hotdogs. The air conditioner had three settings: off, leaking, & freezing. The TV remote controlled the a/c. We were billed for internet usage by the hour and got a bill for $85 at the end of the week. Every time we’d return home, Samara would pound her fists on the door and scream, “Door. Out. Please!!” She expressed our thoughts so well. Ben got salmonella from eating tainted peanut butter cliff bars…so much for bringing safe and portable food from home.

Something about Singapore that is hard for us to understand is way leasing an apartment works. You have to go through a realtor. They don’t have any kind of MLS system here or central place to find all the available apartments. Maybe this is similar to big cities in the US but to us it is insane. It was far far far easier and cost less money for us and the people who bought our townhouse in Greenville and we sold our place ourselves. We found a couple condo complexes we wanted right away but the problem was you can’t just tell your realtor (this is where the apartment management company should come in) and have them show you everything that is available in the complex. They can show you the one or maybe two that they know of another realtor listing but have no way of knowing all of them so you have to go through several (by several I mean like 9) realtors to find the place you want. All the while feeling guilty that this realtor was so nice to show you a place and walk you to the bus stop, and dote on your child, etc. but isn’t going to get compensated for their time with you because you don’t want the units they showed you. We found an ad in the paper for the condo we will be renting and still had to pay a realtor fee of a half months rent ($1,100—yes that’s only half for 1,100 sq ft 45 min outside the city) plus $177 of gst & $108 in stamping fees for the paperwork. We opted for only a one-year lease because we thought our situation will likely be different in a year and we can move somewhere a little bigger and closer to work/church and in part because the realtor fee for a two-year lease was a whole month’s rent. We thought there would be away around not paying the realtor fee upon renewing the lease but nope there isn’t. We’ll have to pay it again to renew the lease because the realtor we’ll have to negotiate the rent and do up the paperwork again. What’s crazy to us is that these landlords don’t just put an ad in the paper and do this themselves since they also have to pay the same commission we do. In most cases, the landlord was there too when we viewed the apartment. On the bright side, if you rent a place more than $2,500/month then the landlord pays the whole commission. Our realtor has been very helpful and resourceful...it's just expensive help!

The place we wanted wasn’t available until March 1st so we are in University owned housing at the moment, where we can pay by the day/week, etc. It was huge blessing to get into it. Another temporary place we had looked at didn’t have a kitchen, wanted a deposit and the two months rent, which including our deposit, advance rent, and realtor fee for our condo was gong to be like $10,000, which we just couldn’t cough up. Two nights before we were supposed to leave our hotel, we were so frustrated and worried. Ben went out to check another temporary option and ran into Jasmine, his HR contact, who when learning of our situation said she’d extend the hotel a couple more days and try to get us into the place we are at now. What a wonderful blessing and answer to prayers! So here we are at Gillman Heights for another 3 weeks. It’s a roomy apartment and nice enough but were excited to get into our condo. We opted for an unfurnished place because the furnished places didn’t come with much at all just some very basic stuff. We also figured in the end we’d be saving money. The rent because it’s unfurnished is $150-$200 cheaper a month and we’ll definitely get all the furnishings they would have provided for under $1,000 using Craigslist, etc.




Funny Story—Cheryl called a cell phone company to ask about setting up service. To set this up you need to have your work permit or letter from the Ministry of Manpower, which is the governing agency for both local and foreign employment. She was on the phone with someone and trying to understand what they were saying while I was prompting her to mention that we have our employment verification letter from the Ministry. You can imagine my delight when Cheryl blurted out, “We have our letter from the Ministry of Magic!” Needless to say, the person on the other end of the phone thought, “Useless Muggles…”

Here are a couple shots of the view from the place we are staying at right now. We are on the 18th floor. That's the ocean in the very back of the day picture.