One thing just leads to another.

So I have the visa, I have the apartment, so what else is there to do. I will say that the hurdles that I have overcome seemed daunting and I’m glad that’s behind me. Now the next series. As in the track and field there’s never a single hurdle. My original plan was to minimize risk by renting my house furnished for a year with an option on a second year. That way I could gracefully retreat to the homeland after a year. I didn’t think that I’d want to do that but it seems almost always useful to hedge one’s bets. I’ve successfully rented my house multiple times from 2 to 4 months so it seemed like a reasonable proposition. Well, I engaged my great realtor to help me with the rental and there were a lot of interested parties but nobody wanted to rent it furnished. In addition people wanted at least a two year lease. That makes sense in retrospect but I just hadn’t thought it through. I mean who wants to rent a furnished house for a considerable period of time? Almost everyone that fits into the category of a trustworthy renter is not a student and usually has their own furniture.

My first thought was that I would just put everything in the garage but gradually my thinking evolved. First of all because some prospective renters wanted to use the garage. Then as I continued to ponder the possibilities I finally came to the realization that even if I did come back after a couple of years I don’t think that I’d want to live in the same house. I mean it’s a nice house and I’ve made it quite comfortable for myself and I like the San Francisco Bay are but… There are several “but”s. I’ll at that point be used to having access to good public transportation, much less automobile traffic, much lower costs of housing, and god knows what else. So at some point in the future I’ll probably sell the house and profit significantly from the insane real estate prices around here. And then what will I do? If I’m still living in Italy which is definitely in my mind a better than even bet then what would I do with that furniture – put it in storage at a cost of probably hundreds of dollars a month?

As my mind continued along that path I realized that I’m not really as attached to my furnishing as I had thought. The things that I’m attached to are art works or little items that I’ve picked up in my travels so I’m finding it liberating to free myself from most of my belongings. In fact I found that there are a hell of lot of things that I have that I haven’t used or even touched for years. This happens each time I move ; I shed such things but this time is different. I’m shedding almost everything. I fortunately have a little shed (well, not that little) shed behind the house that’s lockable and contains a sauna. I’ve never used the sauna but the advantage of it as a storage space is that it’s basically vermin proof. Things that I store there will not deteriorate any time soon. So that’s the plan. I will go with two big suitcases and return in a year with a nearly empty big suitcase as well as an large old one that I have around for the rest of the meaningful personal items.

So I have rented the house on a two year lease to a very responsible couple with a young child. So now I’m busy burning some bridges although it really doesn’t seem that way to me.

So as I write this I’m 5 days away from a moving sale. A woman helping me is going to advertise it as an estate sale which indicates it’s not just the dregs but a lot of good stuff. So below are some photos of things that I hope sell.  I’ll let you know how it works out in the next installment.

Wish me luck and and stay tuned. There’s yet more to the story. Subscribe if you like what you see.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 6th, 2018 at 5:50 pm and is filed under Culture, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.