Friday 26 August 2011

My stay in Manchester

Time flies and I’ve been staying in Manchester for four years and two months. Finally, my husband got a job in US and we are leaving in September. I started my leaving procedures, at first; I went to my estate agency and notified them about my leaving as the cancellation should be mentioned one month prior to leaving. Just after I mentioned about my leaving, the estate agency put my apartment on their web site and people started to come to view my place.
On the first day, I wasn’t sure what kind of people would come so I was a bit scared. However, people were nice and they greeted me and said “thank you” when leaving. I started to enjoy letting people view my place for a while. However, on the second day, 12 groups came to check my place. Each of them came in five minutes and I became totally fed up of answering the interphone and opening my door. The thing which annoys me the most is that some people don’t request the type of room I live in, but they also came. It means the agency staff waste their customer’s time and also my time. I understand it is a busy season where many people look for places to live, and the agency is busy, however they kept calling me and asking me to stay home for this hopeless viewing. On Friday, the agency asked me to stay at home on Monday. I told them I’m available after 5pm. Then he rang me again and told me about some re-arrangements. “No Monday viewing but 10am and some other viewing on Tuesday.” On Monday, the agency rang me again and told me, “10am and 2pm on Tuesday” and he said, “See you tomorrow”. However he came to my place at 5pm on Monday and said, “You told me you’re available after 5pm on Monday.”
It is said, Japanese can’t say “No” in general but now I can say “No” if it’s necessary. So I told him, “You said there’s no viewing on Monday so I can’t let you show my place now.” Then he said “OK, bye.” and left.
On Tuesday, a different staff member came. This time, he came with five people at once and finished the viewing within ten minutes. They came on 2 occasions at 10am and 2pm. So I didn’t have to answer the interphone and open the door repeatedly. It’s much less stressful for me. However this endless viewing will continue. Now I notice that my place isn’t as popular although I’ve been living here for four years!

No comments: