Hi friends

Last week I mentioned that I am currently attempting to buy a house. I’ll be honest, so far the experience could be summed up by asking:

‘What if Kafka was an estate agent?’

Nothing is straightforward in the world of house buying, and every person will tell you a different story about how they did it, or give you a totally a different order of how they went about bidding on a house, getting a solicitor, applying for a mortgage, getting a survey etc. This is a process with no instructions. It’s a big free-for-all, hope-for-the-best, live-laugh-love scenario.

Reader, I am AuDHD. I do not vibe with house buying.

Here’s part one of however many parts I write about this bamboozling process where nobody actually means what they say and ‘certainty’ as a concept simply does not exist. Literally, in the UK you don’t really know if you’ve actually bought a house until you get the bloody keys.

In the words of autistic hero David Byrne - well, how did I get here?

At the start of the year, me and my partner looked at each other and thought it was about time we didn’t live in a house where you have to wipe the walls down every so often (Ernest Hemingway wrote ‘The Sun Also Rises’. My sequels would be called ‘The Damp Also Rises’ and ‘The Rent Also Rises’)

Charged with a motivation to get the hell out of here, we set about searching for our new home. We’ve never bought a house, and we’re both of the wavy-brain variety, so we knew this would be quite a task.

Here, dear reader, comes lesson number 1.

Lesson 1: Do Not Be Fooled By the Photos on Rightmove

Estate agents seemingly have access to a special set of camera lenses that can make rooms appear bigger than they are, whilst also getting those angles just right so they can avoid having that massive water damage mark in shot.

We saw one house that looked fine from the photos. It was within budget and in a great location. At our viewing, we stepped into a house that was disintegrating underfoot. We were told it was currently being rented, and I immediately felt sorry for those living there.

The estate agent who showed us around did what all estate agents do, which is to live in an alternate reality, fully delulu, and try their best to gaslight you into spending lots of money on rubble.

‘It’s got potential,’ she remarked, as we stood there staring at some mysterious white speckling that covered the living room window.

Which leads me to lesson 2.

Lesson 2: Sales People are Not Your Friends

I’ve written before about being naive. It’s a weird mix to be quite self-aware and naive at the same time. It does seem like this is a bit common amongst AuDHD folks and it can make us vulnerable to manipulative people.

Estate agents, like any sales people, want your business, so they will be very friendly with you. As will anyone connected with the house buying process. Don’t be taken in! They’re not your mate, they want your money.

We put an offer in on a house a few months ago and were massively outbid. It’s fine, it happens. We’d also seen another house that day on the same street, being sold by the same estate agency, but it was damp (Greater Manchester housing stock, innit). We were thankful that we didn’t convince ourselves that we were desperate enough to bid for the second house, and we walked away entirely.

A few weeks later, the estate agent phoned me up and breezily told me the buyer for the first house had pulled out of the sale (I’ll admit I had the Avenue Q song ‘Schadenfreude’ in my head all morning afterwards). He then asked me, very politely, if I could up my original bid, and I explained I couldn’t, it was all I could afford.

Up until this point, Mr Estate Agent was all sweetness and light, my best pal it seemed. Out of nowhere, his tone changed and he barked: ‘But the other house you saw sold for a lot more than that, and that was a similar house to the one you bid on.’

Now, I don’t know where I got this confidence from, but I decided to tell him straight that the other house was damp, so I wouldn’t have bid on it in the first place. Mr Best Friend Estate Agent, showing his true colours, immediately snapped: ‘How did you know? Did you bring a damp meter, love?’

Reader, I laughed down the phone at him and hung up. As my Nan would have said; stick to your guns.

And finally, for now, lesson 3.

Lesson 3: Don’t Let It Become Your Life

This is very much a ‘Do as I say, not do as I do’ moment. For the past two weeks, ever since we had the offer accepted, my life has revolved around the New House. Worrying about the mortgage application, getting a conveyancer, printing off reams and reams of paper (we will never reach Net Zero if conveyancers demand a full tree every time someone has an offer accepted).

Worry, worry, worry. What if, what if, what if. I am Queen of Rumination.

Truth be told, house buying is basically my new hyperfixation, except that instead of giving me huge amounts of joy like any other special interest, it is wearing me out.

Yesterday I made a conscious decision to not do any New-House-Related stuff. I haven’t made any art in ages. I have barely been on Substack or worked on any writing properly.

Last week I wrote about feeling happy, and I was, I am. But the worry was creeping around me and weighing me down. If I didn’t do something about it in the way of self care, I would be visiting the depression swamp soon enough.

I don’t want to go there again, so instead I chose to write this newsletter and say hello to the near 1,000 people who read Wavy Thoughts. That cheers me up. Art and connection cheer me up. Don’t lose yourself to this weird process.

I’m a pessimist, a glass half empty type of human. I wish I wasn’t, I’d love to be naturally optimistic and positive. I have to force it by thinking things through logically and trying my best to see the bright side.

The uncertainty won’t be going away, so I have to just try and accept it. Sort of. Argh.

I’m going to try and remember that this whole weird adventure might just work, and we might not have to live within a big damp sponge anymore. That’d be lovely.

A Five Star Review!

I was so pleased to received a second five star review on Etsy for my poetry zine! Thank you to the kind person who left it.

If you’d like to check it out, you can buy it here. It’s my first ever poetry zine, made up of ten poems. Some of them are sad, some of them are silly. Just like me, I guess.

Buy My Poetry Zine Here

Take it easy,

Ren

PS. For those of you who may not have seen, I’ve started making a website that I’ll be building on this year. It lives here: https://www.renriley.co.uk/. There’s a contact form there too so you can let me know what you think!

PPS. If you’d like to support me, my Patreon is here. I had a bit of time away what with being so busy, but back to it very soon!