HGTV, Albania edition

There's a show on HGTV that I used to enjoy in the days when we had cable.  It is called House Hunters International.  If you're not familiar with it, the premise of the show was to follow a couple as they toured homes for sale in various places around the world (think everywhere from Paris,Sao Paulo, Tel Aviv to Dar es Salaam or Melbourne).  The featured buyers for any particular episode were either relocating for work, retiring, or simply wanting to purchase a vacation property outside of their passport country.  The formula for the show was pretty standard: the prospective buyers would tour three properties, select one, and the episode would conclude with an epilogue recorded several weeks later showing them living in the home they selected.

While the show was somewhat predictable, I was nevertheless fascinated.  Who wouldn't want to see how these homes or apartments were laid out, what one could buy for their money in that part of the world, and what kind of arrangements were included with each purchase (was the furniture included? was the parking space extra? how much was the monthly maintenance fee)? 

While thankfully with this move we were spared the stress of touring potential homes, choosing a place to live and dealing with rental contracts, I'm kind of living in the 'epilogue' chapter of the episode.  I'm in our new home and yes, it's quite different than where I came from!  I'm enjoying all of the new things that are different and exciting but I'm also learning how to take care of a place that is very different than anywhere I have ever lived before.

Kerri vacuums the dust out of Anna and Abby's couch

This week Kerri and I have been working, not only to unpack our belongings and set up house, but to also clean it and the apartment below us, where the girls will move in.  Just the experience of cleaning has been a learning opportunity for me as Kerri has shared (while squeezing out mops and scrubbing down shower cabin doors) what she's learned from three+ years of living in a similar kind of home.

We live in a commy condo.  It's a 40+ year old, four-story "pallati" (translated it means palace but while it's not bad, it's not exactly a palace).  

Everything in here is built out of bricks, covered with plaster on the inside and stucco (?) on the outside. If you nick a painted wall (which is very easy to do), it's immediately evident by the exposed white plaster behind the paint.  I'm petrified to drive a nail and hang a picture on the wall -- there's no going back very easily.

The floors are concrete covered in tile. Every square centimeter. I hold my breath when carrying something breakable.  One drop on these floors and they do not forgive! An interesting thing I learned from Kerri is that she has been frequently asked by her friends in Elbasan about the floors in her home -- much like a home in the States might be judged by the number of cars the garage can hold.  Here, tile floors mean one isn't poor. Nice carpets mean you have money to spare.

There is no insulation in these walls, hence no moisture barrier. That means damp from the outside (either from a leaky pipe on the outside of the building, from the foundation below, or a leaky water tank above) soaks in and peels paint, crumbles plaster, grows ugly mold and buckles walls.  This is a constant battle, especially in ground-level apartments.  I saw this first hand during our cleaning.

Thankfully now there are alumil/metal windows and interior doors that have a longer life than the original wood-framed creations, and open and close and (relatively) seal as they should (without warping). We have no screens to keep the bugs out, but we do have metal security shades to lower for privacy, and bars beyond that.  We are so blessed to be on the end of the building to have windows on three sides.  We love our natural light!

The biggest surprise it the dust.  Living on the prairie we had dust, but it was no surprise in an uninsulated ages-old farmhouse surrounded by open fields with lots of wind. Here we are in the middle of the city with barely a breeze. Yet somehow, these buildings create massive amounts of dust.  It's like the walls are shedding epidermis as the plaster breaks down.  I hear it's even worse if a room was painted with the powder-based paint-- it rubs off or just falls off over time leaving powder on the floor around the edge of the room.  During my first 10 years of visits to Albania, all of the streets around this pallati were dirt roads. Thankfully now they are all paved, yet the dust remains an issue.

We don't have such a thing as central heating or cooling.  Each room can be closed off to heat (or cool) as needed with a little space heater or wall mounted AC unit.  Open floor plan?  Not very practical here, unless you don't mind freezing in the winter or boiling in the summer. That means to walk from our bedroom to the children's bedroom I have to open and close four doors. That may not sound like a lot, but it's different for me where I'm used to being closer to the kids and not having as many barriers in between us.

About every spigot that dispenses hot water has its own hot water heater.  There is a hot water tank in each bathroom and one under the kitchen sink.  These suck a lot of electricity and it can be a balancing act to operate any two simultaneously to avoid blowing fuses.  While this is an issue in the village center and for Kerri at her house, thankfully it's not as much an issue for us in Tirana.  Nevertheless we try to be mindful of our consumption for the sake of our utility bills and unplug the tanks if we're going away for a few days.

Thankfully we have water on demand because of the foresight to install roof-top tanks to store water when the city water is not on.  The tanks fill while the water flows from the city, and we draw from those tanks as we need.

I'm also thankful we don't have to rent.  I've heard that it can be difficult to get a rental contract therefore the terms can change quickly, and I don't just mean the price (e.g. our daughter is home from Italy and needs to use your second bedroom while she's in town or, my mother will be your housekeeper and will let herself in when need be to clean for you, or, you don't really need that third bedroom so we'll use it for storing vats of olives).  While most units come furnished down to the pots and pans, if an appliance or utility goes kaput during your lease, as the renter, it's your responsibility to get it repaired or replaced, at your expense since you were the primary user.

Oh the things I am learning and it's just the second week...