Finding a House... Italian Style

I know this blog is a little late. Like I said this blogging ain't my thing....

Wednesday June 18:
We move into our house tomorrow!! Renting a place in the states is a fairly simple affair. You check out the place, sign the lease, give the landlord a check in exchange for the keys, and a few phone calls to the utility company to hook you up. But not in Italy.

It took about 10 different appointments just to get to this point. The base housing office maintains an inventory of available units in the local economy. We had one all picked out in a little town called San Pietro in Gu. It was a little 3 bedroom duplex in a the quaintest little village. However there wasn't a lot of space and the kitchen left a lot to be desired. Italian rentals often do not come with a kitchen. Oh they have a room with a water and gas hookup that is the designated space for a kitchen, but you have to bring your own counter, cupboards, stove, and refrigerator. You bring everything including the kitchen sink. No pun intended. The San Pietro house was no exception. However being the silly Americans that we are, we didn't know any better and scheduled an appointment to lease the house.

But the weekend before that appointment, my good friends, Marlene and Ann, took us to their houses to show us some of the possibilities available in the Italian Rental Market. Wow what an eye opener. Ann's House was in a little town called Poianella. It was huge! 2 bedroom, 2 full baths, and a fully furnished kitchen. Full dining room and living room. And the piece de resistance: the Taverna; a basement with a kitchen traditionally used for the big family meals. Marlene's house was even bigger. 2 stories also with a huge taverna basement. Marlene must have the same square footage as our Hawaii house. As soon as I saw that I knew I needed a taverna... or as I call it, the Man-verna. It became clear to us that the selection of rentals available through the housing office was direly insufficient. Marlene gave us the name of her rental agent, Ms. Franca Ross, who helped Marlene find her lovely home. Franca lived in Canada for many years and spoke English well. Maybe she could help us find a great place.

Through a scheduling mixup, Cynthia booked our first appointment with Franca for the same time as her hair appointment. The first place that I looked at was a wonderful 3 bedroom duplex with an amazing kitchen (can you say marble counter tops?) and a large taverna in a little town called Montecchio Precalcino. We also looked at a few apartments in the heart of the city of Vicenza, but we have been establishing a trend where we choose the first one we look at. Of course we had to schedule up a follow up appointment so that Cynthia and her hair could take a look at the unit too. She agreed with my assessment, so we moved to phase 2.

We had to meet with the housing office to plan the next steps. This involved an appointment where we got some information and scheduled another appointment.
The following Monday we met with Franca and our new landlord, Catterina. I had to sign about 17 different times and initial about 82 different items. Seriously... it was like buying a house. But before we even got to the signing, we had to go to the base disbursement office and cash a $7000 check!! When you sign a lease here in Italy, the first month's rent, the security deposit, and real estate agent's fee (equal to 1 month rent) has to be paid in CASH. It's not like they're going to take a check from Bank of Hawaii, so we're traipsing around the place with 4,600 Euro in Cynthia's purse!

After we got all of the documents signed and were planning to move in on June 15th, we had another appointment with the housing office 2 days later. They always want to review the contract that was already signed. The housing agent didn't like a few provisions in our contract, so more calls to Franca, and more initials and signatures. After the lease was all settled, we had another appointment with the FMO agent. FMO is the temporary furniture that they provide to us since our furniture won't arrive until August.

The next problem was getting the utilities hooked up. Calling them wasn't good enough. Nooooo. I had to actually go down to the electric company with Dania, our Italian interpreter, just to get the electricity turned on. The day I went down there, their computers were down, so I just left my information there and hoped everything got executed properly.

Four days later I had to go to the gas company, again with Dania, to get the gas turned on. Cynthia went to the communications office on base for our telephone and internet hook up. At least they speak English there.

This continues to be a totally wild experience!