When I transferred to Manila, one of the items in my wish list is to have my own pad. I really want this because, I can really say that I'm already independent .. and of course.. P-R-I-V-A-C-Y!!!
Unfortunately, with the high rent rates here in Makati, I can't afford to have one. So I started with bedspacing.. My officemate/friend offered her apartment in Evangelista..It's a typical 2 bedroom up and down apartment. The rent and utility bills were being shared with 3 other ladies (2 bicolanas and 1 from Pampanga). Gay and Eden are occupying one room while Dina and Joan occupy the other one. Since it was Eden who invited me, I temporarily stayed in their room.
Though I'm a bit satisfied with my stay there (goodness I'm only paying 1,400 for the rent and utilities!) though there are some brown creatures that keep on biting me..., I still keep on looking for other alternatives (on the premise that Eden told the group that my stay is only temporary). After 3 months, I moved to Kingswood Condo.
I'm still a bedspacer in Kingswood, it's a 3 bedroom fully furnished unit (furnishings provided by the landlady). Aside from a view of Makati Skyline at my window, the condo has a pool (my dream!!!), a gym, elevators, strong h20, no brownouts and a 24-hr security service. My landlady is nice too, she always brings food in our unit and invites us in bible studies (with matching "Good evening ladies!" and "You're so sweet iha" lines). I'm sharing one of the rooms with my officemate Vea.
It's really fun staying there specially the pool, I can swim there whenever I wanted to!!! Hehehe!! I didn't use the gym since we need to ask for an authorization from our landlady...Setup is almost perfect, except that our landlady is strict when it comes to visitors, she doesn't allow guys inside the unit. Oh no honey...!
After a month, my landlady slowly transformed from sweet-and-kind old lady to a dollar-eyed monster. On the 2nd month, she told us that aside from the 3k bedspacer rent, we're gonna pay additional 100 bucks for the electricity. We no longer argue about that since according to her, it was already imposed as of January (in other words, Vea and I had no choice but to pay...). After a week D.E.M (short for Dollar-eyed monster) again approached us, she's asking if we can pay the succeeding rentals using post-dated cheques (take note, for 6 months) coz she'll be leaving for Canada in April. Since I'm still ignorant and very excited to issue cheques (feelin rich..), Vea and I gave her 6 post-dated cheques (oh dumb dumb!!).
April came and she didn't leave for Canada.. then May..then here comes June...during that time, the unit was already fully occupied (we were ten), obviously, the water and electric consumption will increase.. Every morning, D.E.M visits the unit and she's making sermons "Ang taas taas na ng bill ng koryente, ang taas taas pa ng tubig, di ba kayo magtitipid???"...Oh good Heavens!!! If she only knew, we always make sure that lights were always turned off whenever we leave for work and save water too!!!! Unfortunately during that time, we ran out of LPG and for two weeks, she didn't even bother buy a new one, so we used the electric stove. What else... hmm there's a ref, a tv (by the way, they are using my TV and DVD player since D.E.M's TV set is not cable ready), and of course flat irons.
There was a time that only our unit is having a blackout (remember what I said earlier...Kingswood is a brownout-free building, hmmm), only to find out that D.E.M. failed to pay Meralco bill on time so the unit was disconnected... Oh my!!! Is that our fault???? Grrrrr!!!
Until...
I was doing my weekly ironing in front of TV... then D.E.M came to visit the unit. She saw the meralco bill at the top of the drawer then started making sermons... "Naku bat naman umabot ng 2k ang koryente nyo, ang taas taas na nito ah..", so I said "Ok lang naman po yan, 10 naman po kami dito kaya reasonable naman an tumaas up to 2k ang bill, kami dun sa evangelista 5 lang pero 1,200 na ang bill", and she said "ay, di yan pwede, kapag tumaas na ng 1k ang bill, kayo na ang magbabayad ng excess! Mga wala kasi pakundangan gumamit ng TV, ng ref, ng ilaw, ng plansta, ang dami daming pinaplantsa!!!"... Wait...!!! Excuse me, nagpaparinig ka ba? I really wanted to confront her.. however, still thinking that she's an ELDER... I opted to stay away from the argument. I went to my bedroom, get dressed, and went outside...
The following day, I started on my house-for-rent hunting trip. Together with Mark and AIN, we went to Guadalupe to look for apartments, we found apartments ranging from 9-12k... ooops out of budget.. and then..here comes Eden to the rescue, she told me that Joan will be going back to Bicol for good, if I'm interested to share the other room with Dina. Without second thoughts I said yes...So I talked to my landlady again to inform her that i'll just be consuming my deposit and be leaving at the end of the month and if I can get back the unconsumed post-dated checks. To my dismay, she told me that I can no longer get the unconsumed checks since she already deposited them at the bank... What the ...$%@#! Is it possible???!!! So I told her that she can also give me 3 post-dated checks signed by her. She reply with.."Oh Im sorry I can't, I'll be leaving for Canada this August there's no way for me to monitor if you got the payment".. Grrrr! If she's really interested in returning the money she'll give it to me right away!!! So the only thing I did is to file a Stop Order Payment for my checks, and that cost me 500 pesos for each check.. Huhuhuhu!!!
Condo days are over... back to Evangelista...
Everything went back to normal again.. same old apartment, dripping water, black and brown creeping creatures, busy streets (even at night.. 2 - 3 am, you can still hear the dispatcher shouting "tatlo pa tatlo pa.. Buendia Buendiaaaa!!!" Despite of the condition, I chose to stay in that apartment, Gay and Eden are nice, and also Weng.. and Manay... and even Dina (just a bit heheheh), she's suplada but it's ok, I can tolerate it... I treated the apartment just like our own house, varnish and scrubs the floors, maintain the CR (yup, I always make sure that the bowl and tiles were clean), put curtains, displays and even bought a dryer. Though inside our room, what I can only rearrange are my things... I won't dare to touch any of Dina's things (Duh, I dont want to see any raised eyebrows..), plus the fact that "nauna sya don"... Though I still have thoughts of having my own unit (specially on those times I was thinking of my pitiful and miserable conditions), yet, I stayed in the apartment.
January 12, Friday evening... an unexpected thing happened, which, made me finally decide to look for a new place to stay..
Hon and I searched the long street of Evangelista (and the sidestreets too), we found rooms for rent, and studio-type units, unfortunately, those units didn't suit my taste, it's either dirty, costly or even crowded. Since it was already 10 in the evening, we decided to continue the search the following day.
We went to P. Binay St and found an ad, there are several units for rent, but what catched my attention is the 4,600 1 br unit (actually it's the lowest in the list). Hon and I inquired about it but they told me that they can show me the unit at 3:30 pm. We also found a 2-br up and down apartment for 4,500 but it's located in M. dela Cruz (in the middle of eskinitas..) We had no choice but to wait for 3:30.
At 3 pm we went back to their office and the caretaker showed us the unit, its a mid-sized unit, suitable fo two persons .. But based on my house-hunting experience, it's the cheapest so far...I called mama to inform her that I'll be getting the unit... though she was hesitant at first and wanted me to get a "ka-share" -- a big NO NO!! I explained that the unit can serve as our 2nd house. They can stay there whenever they visit me and aside from the fact that my brother will be working in Manila soon. Finally, they allowed me to rent the unit.
On January 16th, I signed the contract, the owner have it painted, and on the 18th I moved in....
At last!!!!...
