I'm changing aparments in Tel Aviv

June 4, 2007

I wish I had started this earlier to give a better idea of the details. I am moving apartments. I suppose it is largely due to the fact that I am a little too “thrifty”. OK, cheap. I know that is something on which I must work. I have always had hated being taken advantage of in business deals and this has happened a couple of times already. My current landlord representative is a nice guy but a little too nice. He thought that his being friendly with me would afford him some slack in taking care of me. My A/C was broken again and it took him a week to fix it. It’s now broken again. When I offered to talk to his boss to get him permission to spend the money that he had said he could not spend, he bought me a fan that next day and fixed the A/C the next day. I had to promise disassemble the fan and replace it in the box so that he could return it to the store. (These are small and normal life annoyances) They had also bait-and-switched apartments for me; charging me more when I arrived than they had emailed me.

After the frustrations, I started looking for other apartments. I had a great meeting with a representative from an investment company about investing with Scott, Hults, and me in real estate in the Southeast. He told me of someone leaving a studio in the neighborhood of Neve Zedek. This is the hot area and it’s like the Virginia Highlands of Atlanta. Plus, it was only $500/month compared to my current $1,100/month that was going up to $1500/month. I thought I should check out what people say is the best and most happening area in Tel Aviv. As I checked around for other places, there were only dumps that were around $1,000 per month and they were studios.

The guy leaving the new apartment was my contact. He immediately exudes rapport on the telephone. You really feel you can trust the guy. He and his girlfriend are going trekking through China and Mongolia for two months. He described the way to find his place and told me stop by a café nearby to get a map of the area. Tel Aviv is mostly multi-floor multifamily residences. It’s urban and walkable from end to end. However, I have mentioned before that architecturally, a war fought here couldn’t hurt the appearance of the buildings. It could be Tegucigalpa, Honduras, or a part of Mexico City. However, this is an area of old single-storey homes that are tightly packed together. It used to be a high-crime area (drugs, etc. and there never was much violent crime) that was settled by immigrants from Yemen.

Tel Aviv was founded only a century ago. Jaffa, on its southern border, was mostly Arab but Zionistic Jews were moving in and purchasing properties. Jews were attacked and sometimes killed there so they moved to the uninhabited north of Jaffa and grew Tel Aviv from the sand dunes and empty desert. There are huge obstacles in redeveloping the city due to code regulations. There are decaying empty buildings that are beach front where the city won’t let you raze obsolete buildings to construct efficient and aesthetically pleasing structures (at least there are none of those obnoxious WINGS beach supply stores on every corner like there are in the USA). However, the area really has a charming village feel to it and has several fine restaurants, cafes, artists studios, and a fine arts and dance center. Near my new home is a wood crafts shop where you can see a family chiseling and shaving furniture and crafts by hand.

Anyway, I went into the café to get the map of the Neve Zedek area and felt obligated to have a cup of coffee. I felt uncomfortable with the bartender as he batted his eyelashes at me. There seems to be a thriving gay population here. I heard there is a gay pride festival this weekend. The current apartment tenant called me when he returned home to direct me to his door. He used to work at that café. He said, “Turn left out of the door and go straight past the trash cans in the gravel lot, pass the rusty trailer and my house is straight ahead. Well, it looks like a dump from the outside and it’s only a little better on the inside. It’s a studio with the bed suspended in the air on a platform that is about six feet high (I’ve always liked the top bunk since I was a kid). The bathroom and kitchen (let’s call them the head and the galley) are about the size of one that would be on a boat. But, all in all, the place is about the size of my current apartment.

The current tenant is a warm, bright, sincere young man with the look of the Arian version of Jesus. His hair is pulled back in a pony tail and his beard makes his eyes seem that much more kind and intense. He has a very good looking blonde girlfriend who was talking the trip with him. They just seemed so content and happy in life. He really seemed like he was going to miss this Bohemian Villa. The owner met me and lives around the corner. I think I really hit it off with him. He owns a few apartments and does all of the renovations my hand himself. The building is attached to who-knows-how many other buildings. They are arranged in what seems a haphazard way that had them built before there was such a thing as a fire code. I had to follow him around a labyrinth of a walkway past dwellings where you could see into everyone’s living rooms. He is my age with a grown kid and a teenager. He has a speed boat, and a parachute with an engine he straps to his back to use to fly around. Adventure toys, that’s what I like. The place will be unfurnished but the owner offered to give me a mattress for the platform, a table and chairs, and a coffee table. I will have to find the rest in a flea market/garage sale, etc. I don’t know how long I will stay but I will have to rent the place for three months. Considering I would have had to have paid $1500 for one month, $1500 for three doesn’t seem so bad. There is A/C and a washing machine outside as well.

So, this is my new minimalist Bohemian bungalow. While I was there, three other groups came by to see it. It really is a popular area and there are loads of cafes, high-end galleries, artists’ studios, “decent” architecture just a block or two away. It is a five minute walk to Shuk Ha Carmel (the Tel Aviv wet market) and a five minute walk to the beach. I think it’s only about 10 or 15 minutes to Jaffa. I will have to get a bike or start taking the bus to school in the morning. Even though I am not into the bar and club scene, most of it is just 5 minutes away. We’ll see. If I don’t like it, I think I could get someone to take over from the Ulpan as the rent it cheap and the area is a hot spot.