Outside First

Outside First ©

By Michael Casey

We’ve all seen that great cartoon Inside Out, they do in fact use it in the classroom at school to teach psychology, my daughter just an A* that’s 90% plus in her mocks, which is expensive as I give her a tenner for every A*, if only she were stupid then I’d be richer.

I’m not talking about psychology today, though indirectly I am, I will be talking about house hunting instead. The first thing when you are looking for a house is to look for the NEGATIVES, my brother told me that a very long time ago. It’s easy to fool yourself and end up buying a rubbish house that leaks. So think NEGATIVE.

Today I had a look at house that had possibilities, they all have possibilities don’t they. I had a wander around the roads where the house was, checking for level of litter and dodgy people, not to mention the level of shoddy parking. If an area looks like a tip it won’t suddenly get nice if you deign to live there. If there is a prostitute chewing gum by the bus stop, or men angrily screaming in the street then it may be wise to cross that area and that house off your list.

If you have a chip shop as neighbour, that may be nice but when the potato lorry delivers your parking space may be blocked, and do you really love the smell of frying chips all day everyday, not to mention a posy of pussies trying to break into the dustbins to get at the fish.

These are basic things that you investigate before you look inside a house. Is there a school nearby, that may be handy if you have school age kids, but nasty parents blocking the entire street while they pick up their beautiful children, noise and mayhem twice a day, and if you are a shift worker who needs his sleep.

And what if the kids are visiting that chip shop at dinner time too. Or what if Brenda the sexist prostitute in the area lives about the chip shop. Cries of passion while she batters her client above while the fish are being battered below in the chip shop. Local colour maybe, all right in Islington in yet another photocopied Hugh Grant film, but in real life?

So don’t drive to the house and look and buy without walking around the area. You may be spending the rest of your life there, so make sure you want battered fish from the chip shop and even from Brenda above the chip shop, but also make sure you don’t get battered, assaulted and battered by local criminals.

I know lots of busy Yuppies never walk anywhere but this fat writer of one million words DOES walk everywhere, so be observant, as observant as you are with whatever belief you have, be careful don’t buy rubbish, a wife or girlfriend may be easy to change, but a house is a much more difficult proposition, and propositions you’ll get in plenty if you end up living next door  to a chip shop with a battering prostitute living above it.

Now that I’ve taught you all the pitfalls I hope you realise that shoe leather is the most important part of house hunting. Look at the pretty picture of the house on www.rightmove.co.uk then immediately check the map, you need to know where you will be living. Then check google earth and satellite view, walk around your new neighbourhood, and see what you can see. If you are afraid of the Dead then don’t buy a house by your ever so quiet neighbours, if everything seems ok then look at the pictures of the interior of the house.

Then if that seems ok go and look at the outside and check the neighbourhood out, there may be a right of way, a path outside that leads to a Scientology meeting hall, so you have 1000s of them walking by your house. If you are a Tom Cruise fan that may be interesting, but otherwise it may not be your cup of tea, or you may love Dune.

So now I’ll finish, I hope you all realise God is good, but house hunting is the work of the Devil as it drives you mad and ruins relationships, so you may decide go back home and live above the Chinese takeaway with the girl of your dreams. Rather like me and my Shanghai surprise, my egg fried rice, and me her Panzi.