“What do you mean they’ll come here?” I ask, not quite understanding what my boyfriend’s saying.
He takes a bite out of a sandwich with too much deli meat for my liking. “I’ll show them around,” he replies between chews, “tell them what’s wrong with the apartment, gas costs, things like that.”
“We show potential tenants around?” I repeat, slowly. Doesn’t the landlord do that?
More chewing, “That’s how it is around here sometimes.”
Literally his answer to everything – that’s how it is around here. I shrug, thankful my regular cleaning means we won’t have to do a song and dance just to get the place in order.
Before, moving for me meant letting the landlord know, getting my stuff together on the exit-date agreed, and rolling out. Here in Belgium (at least in this region) it means having prospective tenants come see the place while you’re still in it. It’s an invasion of privacy for sure, but one locals are so accustomed to it’s no big deal to them.
My mum and I had a laugh over this practice. We were almost doubled over on the phone to be honest. Not because we’re knocking how they do things here, but the image of this happening in Barbados for example, is just too funny.
In my tropical hometown, the idea of strangers tramping through your house is unheard of. Bajans (another term for Barbadians) barely like it if a friend turns up with someone else they don’t know and worse, didn’t know you were bringing. You can imagine then that random people able to come in and see exactly how you’re living would not fly at all lol.
But, when in Rome . . . ^_^.
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This would be such a culture shock for me lol! The customs of other countries are so intriguing, but yeah, that would not work for the Caribbean.
Truth! I could imagine people literally looking at you like… “and you’re on my doorstep why?” Not to mention if landlords tried that lol, whoa, Barbadians for sure would not be about it.
We used to do this when we were selling a house we owned, but never in a place we just rented!
Lol right? One of the oddest real estate related things I’ve come across 😂. Thanks for sharing Rachel!