New laws, new challenges.... new opportunities?

 As August draws to a close and September is just around the corner, Maiki and I are preparing to move to our seventh home of this year. We'll be going to dog-sit Maiki's buddy, Ecco, (who starred in the Valentine's Day video with her: click here to watch the video.) That'll be fun, but unfortunately it'll only be for ten days, while Ecco's owner and a friend with cancer are walking part of the Camino de Santiago. From September 10th, we'll be homeless once again and looking for our eighth home of 2023.

In a blog post at the end of June (click here to read it), I explained the factors that had led to the current housing crisis in Spain. A few things have happened since then... which have led to new challenges but possibly also to new opportunities.

At the beginning of this year, a main obstacle to my finding  housing was the fact that landlords were requiring renters to take out an insurance policy in case they found themselves unemployed and were unable to pay the rent (which is what happened a lot during the pandemic.) However, the insurance companies were refusing to issue such policies unless the rental contract and utilities were less than 30% of the renter's salary. This meant that to view a flat with a monthly rental of €1500, for example, you had to prove that your salary was almost €5000 a month. Completely unrealistic for most people looking for rental accommodation, and totally impossible for people like myself who can prove no salary at all.

In May of this year, it became obvious that something needed to done. Renting a flat or house was something that was now only possible for the very rich. So the Spanish government passed a new law. In "stressed housing areas," they said (places where the average rental was far above 30% of a normal person's salary), it would be illegal to insist on this requirement. The law further stipulated that the estate agent's fees should now be paid by the home owner and no longer by the person who was looking for a place to rent.

This initially suggested that house hunting would begin to look more hopeful for people like myself. While there would be no change in the actual cost of renting, it would again become accessible to people with a more normal level of income.

But the law came with its own backlash: some landlords, those who owned their homes outright, were willing to take the risk of renting to someone who wasn't "well off,' but many homeowners, including those who perhaps bought a property for the purpose of renting it out to pay the mortgage, just weren't willing to take the risk of renting to someone who might default on the payments and put their mortgage at risk. So, now there are fewer properties available for rental; you can search for weeks and there's simply nothing..... or you find just a handful of options with a genuinely extortionate price tag.  As some landlords have decided not to rent out their houses any more, those who are still offering homes for rent can afford to demand higher payments.... knowing that there will be foreigners, usually Scandinavians or Americans, who are happy to pay the high rents, finding them to be no more expensive than what they were paying back home.

The bad news is that this means there are even fewer rentals available than there were at the beginning of the year. The good news is that some of those properties no longer being rented out will very likely be put on the market and be for sale over the coming few months.

So I'm continuing to keep up my search for a place to rent.... but I'm also increasingly open to the possibility that my long term solution might involve having to buy something small for myself. That's a scary thought in some ways; I've dreamed of owning my own home, but never imagined it to be something that would be possible for me, living on a lower than average income.

But I'm getting so weary of moving house every month and not having access to all my stuff (furniture, books, clothes...) and I'm open to whatever solution God may bring across my path. 

Thank you for praying that I will have strength and wisdom for the weeks ahead.

And then there were two...

 

Today's post is just to give a final update on my Teddi...

and to say a big thank you to everyone who sent best wishes and prayers when I shared that he was going into surgery this morning.

In the end, the tumour was inoperable as it went too deep into his tongue. This morning we had to put him to sleep after all.  I'm at peace that our vet proposed at least checking out whether surgery could be an option; I don't need to wonder about whether I made the right decision to end his life. Teddi had a long and full life - almost all the years that I've lived here in Spain - and I'll have many happy memories of him.

So, now our little family has become very small: only Maiki and myself as we continue to look for our new home here in Spain.

Thanks for your prayers.

Teddi's going for surgery...

Poor Teddi (my cat) hasn't coped well with our enforced nomadic lifestyle this summer. Every time we've moved house, every time he needed to be put into a cat carrier and driven somewhere in the car, every time he had to get used to a new house, he has found it very stressful. 

At one of the places we stayed, we were looking after friends' dog, a big boxer. He was very sweet, but he wasn't used to cats. Teddi needed to be enclosed in a small room where he spent most of the time hiding under the bed, because the boxer barked at him if he appeared in the doorway (even though I'd put up a baby gate to keep them separated.) He's doing a bit better now that we're back in Alhaurín and have a house all to ourselves; we're house sitting while a friend is on outreach in the Ukraine.

But last week, Teddi suddenly stopped eating dry cat food and would only eat soft wet food. I began to wonder if he had toothache and soon I noticed that he had terrible bad breath. On Monday this week, I took him to the vet and she discovered that he has a huge tumour under his tongue. That's what's been making it difficult for him to chew or swallow. As he's getting elderly and already has some kidney issues, it looked as if surgery would be too risky, and so I've been preparing myself to grieve and to put him to sleep. He's already lost a kilo from eating less, and it wouldn't be fair to wait much longer... even though he's generally happy and snuggly as always.

Today his blood tests came back and the vet phoned me to say that it's really not too bad: that his kidney failure is well under control and he has a good chance of living more years. As mouth surgery is so expensive in the veterinary hospital, she's suggested that she does it herself - tomorrow in our own vet surgery - to see how much of the tumour she can remove. If we're lucky, the root of it won't be too deep.

I'm not going to do a biopsy, because I already know that I'm not going to subject my old boy to chemotherapy... but I've decided to follow the vet's recommendation and have her operate on him tomorrow morning to at least give him a chance. As she pointed out, if she herself does the surgery, operating to see if we can give him an opportunity to live longer will not really cost much more than just euthanising and cremating him without giving him a fair chance to recover.

If all goes well, this op might be the end of the problem and Teddi can enjoy some more senior years. Alternatively, if the tumour comes back in the future, that would be a clear indication that it's time to make the decision to say goodbye and put him to sleep.

So, early tomorrow morning, 8.30 Spanish time, my sweet boy will go into surgery.... and my thoughts and prayers will go with him.

I'll let you know what happens.

Andalusian wanderings

It's been a while since I last posted here in this blog. Our nomadic lifestyle has continued over the summer months and we've moved house THREE more times since my post that explained more about the Spanish housing crisis.

At the end of June, we moved inland to the little town of Coín. Some friends had asked me if I could dog-sit for them while they went to the UK for a family emergency. I spent the first two weeks living in a little guest cottage on their property - one that they usually rent out to holidaymakers. Then I moved further up the road to live in their own house with their dog. As well as looking after the dog, I was responsible for looking after AirBnB guests who arrived to live in the cottage.

Inland towns are at a slightly higher altitude - colder in winter and hotter in summer. Our moving to Coín coincided with a heat wave and it sometimes felt like living in a pizza oven, with afternoon temperatures occasionally rising as high as 46 degrees. I was very thankful that they had a swimming pool on their property, but the very hot weather meant that the dogs couldn't go outdoors in the afternoon; the hot cement would have burned the skin of their paw pads.

Just as my time in Coín was coming to an end and I was wondering where I'd go on July 27th, I got a message from a young friend at church. "I'm going on holiday and then on outreach during August," she explained. "Would you like to stay in my house from 27th July till 23rd August.. or till the end of August, if you like?"

So, now I'm back in Alhaurín de la Torre, living not far from where I'd lived for the past fifteen years. But I still haven't found anything permanent and there don't even seem to be many options to view during the summer months. Please continue to pray with me that our permanent home will soon become available and our nomadic wanderings can stop. Thank you.