This Old House

We bought just before Wellington went really crazy, but still things were bad enough. We had the experience everyone has now, of standing in a queue that stretched from front door to the street, seeing the same desperate couple at every viewing and knowing that they too were seeing a desperate couple wherever they went. Of course, the house we wanted was always out of reach or, if not, flawed in some way. Some were filled with asbestos, with borer, with roofs as structurally sound as a Cadbury Flake. At one, I watched two rats fight in the backyard. Another had been extensively renovated but nothing had building consent. It was all the work of an enthusiastic amateur. Walking down the stairs, I found myself forced into a strange, loping gait by steps built at a weird angle of the owner’s own design.

Eventually we gave in and bought what is termed a “doer upper” in real estatese, a “dump” in English. The windows were spongey in the corners, the walls and ceiling all battleship grey and the carpet the colour of cold porridge. The garage was in need of recladding and there was rust in the roof. I could go on and I have. Shortly after moving in, I began a list of all the things I needed to do but by the time I got to the end of page two I gave up, closed the document, never to open it again. Its title “House — To do”, a mocking presence in my documents folder to this day.

Still, for all these faults, there were things that we liked. This house was clad with black, rough-sawn weatherboards that gave