Alora, Alora

The adventure of living in my apartment in Perugia has become a little bit of a joke. So I thought that I'd share a poem, written by Alan Whykes. It can be found in "The Little Blue, What to Do: The Stranger's Guide to Perugia."

Apartment (Un)available

No students.

The price for the room doesn't include the gas.

Or the electricity.

Or the water. Or the rubbish.

Or the building services charge. Or the agent's fee.

Or stamp duty on the rental contract. Or...

The door's only a little broken.

Kitchen? We eat out.

This is the washing machine. It works great but we don't use it because it floods the apartment.

No males.

You have to go through the other bedroom to get to the toilet.

You get used to it after a while.

Room, well, yes, the advertisement did say room.

We meant a corner of the living room.

No foreigners.

I'm not sharing my house, I'm only renting a room. Understand?

There's no shower or bath but the toilet works fine.

Working people only.

How do you like my giant dog?

The room's a bit small, I know, but you can study in the hallway.

Sorry, it's been taken.

You have to pay a month's rent in advance.

And two month's rent as bond.

And another month's rent as bond for the service bills.

And we'll need to keep your passport...

Garage? Unfortunately it's a bit full of old furniture and faded newspapers. It's actually much more convenient to leave your motorbike outside. On the street. In the rain.

What language to you speak? Pardon?

What lang-uage speeaakk?

As you can see the house is very secure, because there aren't any windows.

This is the key to the room.

The lock's missing, but we had one a few years ago.

Can you call again tomorrow?

You'll only have to share the room with one German drug addict, one Romanian neo-faschist, and a Siberian hamster.

Those maggots don't come from our rubbish, they just fall down from the flat upstairs.

Short week only. What does that mean? It means you can't stay here on weekends because the other guy uses the room.

No visitors.

This is the coffee cup so try not to break it.

Of course we have a telephone. It's just not connected.

How much rent? We haven't decided yet.

How much can you afford to pay?

After a few months you don't even notice the traffic.

Or the fire engine sirens.

No no no. The room is taken. No.