The numerous hazards of moving into a new place

Those who know these things say that moving house is among the most traumatic events in a person’s life. The others are death, divorce and losing your job. I was once in the privileged position of experiencing all four within the space of a few days. I say privileged because, after that, you can pretty much handle anything life throws at you.

Moving no longer affects me. These days I welcome change of any kind. It must be said, though, that if there is moving to be done, I prefer it takes place of my own volition. There have been times when circumstances dictated that I disperse fairly abruptly, and the raw poetic beauty that often accompanies pre-dawn flight is easily tarnished by the sound of weeping and shouting. When it comes to leaving, timing is everything.

Most recently, my landlord of three years evicted me for no good reason at all. I think his plan is to start brewing moonshine in the cottage. I can’t afford to buy property in Cape Town because I never listened to my mother when I left school and became a journalist instead and now it’s too late. Since I arrived here from Durban twenty years ago, it has been one endless sonic boom driven by a real estate industry gone insane with hubris and greed.

There was a moment in 2004 when I thought I might be able to get a small place, but then prices went berserk before I could get to the bank. Virtually overnight, estate agents went from vulpine Mazda-driving gin junkies to vulpine BMW-driving champagne junkies. Not all of them, obviously, but certainly the ones who scavenge along the Atlantic Seaboard.

The bar for entry was raised sharply and savagely, quickly outstripping the ability of workers, shirkers, revolutionaries and right-brained romantics to get a foot in the door. Hell, by the time the rapacious feeding frenzy had subsided to a dull roar, we couldn’t even get a toehold.

Being a serial renter, I know the drill. For a start, you don’t get into a car with an estate agent because once she has shown you a place, she will suddenly remember several other “charming” properties in the area and by the time you get back to your car you’ll need a handful of antidepressants and two shots of ketamine.

Estate agents are the apex predators of the property world. Like hyenas, they can detect weakness and fear and close in quickly the moment you start looking for premises. The trick is to get in, find a place and get out before you can be bamboozled, gazumped and utterly drained of your will to live.

A crippling sense of hopelessness was setting in when I trudged up the stairs to look at the ninth place. There was a picture window in the lounge looking towards a stormy sea. I stood transfixed while the agent prattled on in the background.

“I’ll take it,” I said. I’m a sucker for a view. It could be a fire-damaged crackhouse, but if you can see the ocean, I’m in.

Deposit paid and boxes shifted, the owners invited me to their place downstairs. It was full of heavy, dark furniture that last saw action in the Boer War.

“We have a grandfather clock,” said Johan. That’s nice, I thought. Why are you telling me this?  Good heavens. Look at the size of that thing. A pendulum bigger than a dinner plate swung hypnotically. Then the potential horror of the situation struck me. “Does it say anything?” I enquired, wincing. Marietijie nodded, her impeccably sculptured hair-do bouncing happily. “Oh yes! It chimes every fifteen minutes.”

As if on cue, it uttered its mournful knell. Bing-bong-bing-bong. Westminster-style. Marietjie seemed to slip into some sort of trance. Johan was less affected. He fetched himself a whisky and went outside for a smoke. “We can put it on silent if it’s a problem,” he said, slipping into the garden. Marietjie snapped out of it. “That’s not going to happen,” she said firmly. A hair came loose from the coiffured superstructure on her head. She excused herself and went off to conduct emergency repairs.

I was left alone with the clock. This house is too small for two Big Bens, I thought. I didn’t have long. Five minutes at most. I thought of pouring sugar into its carburettor but there was no way of telling what fuelled this beast. All its nasty bits were behind glass. Someone would hear if I kicked it in the ribs.

Marietjie walked in and thought I was admiring their horological atrocity. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said. “Hard to believe,” I replied. Misinterpreting the look on my face as one of hunger, she ducked into the kitchen and returned with a plate heaped with home-cooked food plus a side plate of bread and jam in case I needed padkos while making the twenty-metre trek upstairs.

There was no escaping it. Every bing and bong found its way through the floorboards. The chimes double on the half-hour. At the three-quarter hour, it delivers no fewer twelve bing-bongs. The grand finale is when the top of the hour is reached. Sixteen bing-bongs followed by the terrible intonation of deathly bongs that sound like the hollow footsteps of the Grim Reaper himself.

I can’t imagine what terrible thing must have happened in someone’s life that they would want a shouting device reminding them that time is slipping by – that they are coming closer to the grave one bing-bong at a time.

They also have rabbits the size of capybaras prowling their perfectly manicured lawn. There is one snaggletoothed brute in particular that would have my throat given half a chance. And someone in the area has a rooster whose idea of dawn is unlikely to be shared by any living creature.

Something’s got to give.

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