House Hunt Thoughts

If the neighbor of the house you are looking at feels the need to have 4 huge guard dogs…then maybe that is not the best neighborhood for your family.

If the set up of the house and the strange middle aged white guy inside has you wondering why he is in Thailand and what goes on in his house…then maybe that is not the best neighborhood for your family.

It’s not unusual to find a sink with one cabinet underneath and "an" electrical outlet for the refrigerator on the other side of the room in a “kitchen”.

Do you take the 3000 sq ft house in an “ehh, not so great, kind of bad” neighborhood, or do you take the 500 sq ft house in the nice safe neighborhood?

Can you pretend that smaller house is bigger if it has a fairly functioning kitchen with a DISHWASHER? Oh, this is a tough one… I am still in debate mode.

Our ten suitcases have no need for the 3000 sq footer but our family of four needs more than 500 sq ft.

There is a difference between mouse poop and rat poop.

Not sure of the reason, but some houses have had their driveway tiled in colorful and very ornate ceramic tiles. Maybe they just think it’s pretty or maybe they love to mop so much that in addition to mopping inside the house once a day (because having the windows open makes things pretty dusty) they also wanted to include “Mop the driveway” to the daily chore list. :) Mmm, you will not be finding me mopping a driveway.

Most houses do not come with air conditioning units and if they do in at least one room, then they move quickly up the “If We Had To” list.

When there is a house listed on-line without a picture, there is a reason, so save your gas money and don’t bother driving out.

Why is it that the first five houses your find on a google search have already been rented out…like 6 months ago? I guess updating info isn’t that important?

There are a few very nice recently developed neighborhoods that have a dozen or more vacant houses…but these are not for rent…only for sale. A frustrating concept to a foreigner who can not buy!

If something is way below the range of your budgeted rent, there is a reason.

I don’t think it would be challenging to find something nice and safe rather quickly and easily if we looked at homes that were 4x out of our range. But that goes for any country, not just here.

If something sounds too good to be true, it is.

Words like “nice”, “neat”, “clean”, and even “garden” are defined differently by different people.

Knowing a house could be for rent is not known by the sign posted outside, because there is none. You can tell by the overgrown yard and lack of furniture inside.

Getting in touch with owners is very challenging. So, leaving notes in English and Thai in their mailboxes, knocking on neighbors’ doors to inquire, having your Thai friend take a look at the individual’s name on other letters in the mailbox and later research for a phone number are all acceptable ways to hunt down an owner.

Leaving an add stating…”We are an American family looking for…for between X and Y per month…” may generate calls from people who think they can fool the foreigners into paying more baht each month than it is worth.

When a sweet woman returns your email immediately with a dozen pictures of the house for rent, you want to rent it from her for the sheer fact that she was helpful. But unfortunately that is the itty bitty house. So sad.

Well, this was my attempt at making light of a very time consuming, frustrating and so far fruitless process of finding our family a home here. I am thinking about giving up completely on the search as if I can trick God in to the idea that I am surrendered or something but I know that won't work on God. Man, what else can I do to make this happen! Well, it can’t be blamed on our lack of effort, that’s for sure! I hope it comes soon because I am tired of questioning myself after every time we see a house, ..."Ok, was that home not suitable for us or am I being too particular?" There have been times in my life were I may have been guilty of being too particular, but not now! How ever could I have managed to get here sanely if I was!

Need house…must find house. Ahh!

We had a miracle to get out of our last home, so we need a miracle to get in to our new home.So, now you know how to pray!