Many renters lose money by making mistakes of not reading their apartment contract before signing, on our part we have no contract with the property owner but my husband’s employer has. It was only lately that they found out that we have to pay maintenance fee every month, so we started paying two months after we moved to our apartment and few days after we are informed. It turns out we should also pay the maintenance fee from the first month we move in so when my husband received that memo I went to the bank to pay the two months balance, the next month we already pay on time which is every second of the month. But after few weeks my husband received a memo again about paying the maintenance fee, he was asked if he wants it salary deduction if paying monthly is such a burden. My husband was a little furious because we already pay maintenance fee good for 4 months, so he told his co-teacher about it.

My husband brought his bank book to show the proof of money transfers, and guess what it turns out the property owner doesn’t update his bankbook or didn’t look at it carefully.

Originally published @ herzfinance.com

Free housing/apartment is included in my husband’s contract, it was shouldered by the school. So we are not expecting any miscellaneous fee and everything but when we moved out from our old apartment we are surprised to know that we have to pay something. Yeah right, we have to pay a certain amount of money for the sensor light. The sensor light is installed in front of the building which is used by all of the people living in the building so who will thought there’s a fee for that when we are not informed when we moved in.

[Image from worldpropertychannel.com]

Same thing happened when moved in to our new apartment, we have been living one month already when we are informed that we have to pay maintenance fee monthly that includes the used of elevator, garbage disposal, sky life and water. Now we know why we are not receiving water bill as it was bill in the whole building. As we are not using television the landlord eventually deducted the bill for sky life, with this hidden fees our budget was affected. Instead of saving the extra $$$ we have to use it for maintenance fee every month.

Originally published @ herzfinance.com

Few more days and we are going to move, we already visited the new apartment in Shinha the other day.  Sunhee the company director fetch us, so we could see it.  At first glance it look smaller than our apartment here,  if given a choice I would still choose our apartment here in downtown. I already built a bond with our apartment, I love every corner of it.

Our things are already packed and ready to go, this is all what we accumulated in three years leaving in Icheon, when we first arrived in this City from Seoul all we had is one big box and two big bags and now see what we got.

Anyway the good thing of the new apartment  is it is on the 4th floor. No more unexpected visitor because  I just had a little phobia from doorbell sound, but it does not matter anyway if you are not going to be around all day.

I am quite busy these past few days that I can’t update my blogs, I am busy both offline and online. In the next few days we are moving to a new apartment  that’s why I became so busy packing our things, it was not done yet because we are still using the pots and utensils.

Today my husband’s director will visit here in our apartment and she will take us to our new apartment. Gladly I have cleaned last night so it is not going to be shameful when she came here.

I felt stress on my neck the other night after having unexpected visitor.  My husband and I was sort of busy in front of our laptops when we heard a car with engine on in front of the apartment followed by someone trying to unlock the glass door beside our apartment door and then rang our doorbell. We didn’t mind it because we are already used that our doorbell was always mistaken as doorbell for the main door (for the apartment upstairs).  It was repeated many times followed by knocking on our door and unlocking our door lock too, but as the code was wrong our door remains closed.

My husband asked me to check it, the moment I opened our door I greet the person behind it but I was shock when she stormed inside our apartment, took his shoes off and made her way to our glass sliding door despite of me blocking on her way. I was surprised on her presence so I have asked the unexpected visitor who she was, she replied “(Her name) from Korea”.

Anyway she quickly went inside as if it was her own apartment I help her slide the door so my husband can see her because he is asking who it was, well I thought too it was my husband’s co-teacher and she has an urgent matter or information for my husband. Upon seeing my husband she quickly turn around like how quick she went inside our apartment,  she stumble to the shoes in our door. The funny thing is when she went out she is wearing my husband’s pair of sneaker so I handed her ugg boots to her, she says sorry and I just nod. I closed the door afterwards and I have heard she went to the other door beside ours, so I opened our door a little to see what she is doing.  She knocked to the next door and trying to unlock the door. I thought she was just lost because it happens many times already so I closed our door.

When nobody opens the door for her she went back to the main door, unlocking and banging it. Still no sign that someone will open it for her she went back to our door, rang our doorbell and unlocking our door and then we heard her running quickly out of the apartment building and we heard knocking to other apartment building.My husband says the teenage girl seems to have down syndrome and probably she escaped from their home and now can’t find where it was. I think she already find their home after leaving our apartment building because I didn’t hear banging noise anymore. Though after she left that’s where I felt nervous and stress on my neck. Thinking what if someone with a knife or gun is behind our door when I opened it? So I have told myself I am not going to open the door anymore unless I waiting for my order online.

The next morning someone knock on our door and rang our doorbell and I didn’t open it nor my husband opened it. Then we heard a woman talking on the phone I am not sure if it was the landlady because she sounds like her, probably they saw what happened last night in the CCTV and just want to check or say something.

Today is just another busy day, I wake up at noon time. After earning points on my adgitize account I have to start cooking, yeah right stressing.

Anyway our apartment stench again that I need to close the bathroom door, it seems the people in the second/third floor is making kimchi because it stinks like one. We are on the ground floor so I guess when they washed their dish and the water went to the drain the gas went up. Yesterday it also stinks like garlic and kimchi, then later afternoon I found out that there are people having barbecue party in the garage so probably they prepared kimchi for their barbecue party and washes the dishes today.

It just started by my things filing up in the closet, small towels, unused brassiere and underwear’s that are still packed on their little pouch. My husband noticed that the stuff on the little board is getting heavier and it might lost control and will result to a big mess.

So he removed the makeshift board at top and transfer the underwear’s and socks to floor cabinet, and the things on the floor cabinet to the built-in cabinet near the main door and my junk in the built-in cabinet to trash can and box.

It took me so long to segregate things as everything are precious to me, we ended up throwing the red food cover given to us by Nonghyup Supermarket, the old scale, old umbrella and my old sandals then after cleaning we went shopping to Lotte Super, we shopped mostly vegetables I’ll blog it to my food blog if not today maybe tomorrow.

Few months ago my husband and I went to the super market to shop goods for our weekly supplies but before we did, we first went to a store for home supplies and decorations, we are trying to look for blinds for our window but the store is quite big that we almost lost our hope to find one. As we cannot find it we try to look for floor lamps but we all we found are table lamps, so we just walk around passing every shelves and we finally find the window accessories including blinds, hangers and metal pipe  or curtain holders. They have abundant supply of blinds and we try too look for something we are gonna like but the realization came, we don’t  know the size of our window. If we are going to buy,  either we are  going to waste money or be happy if the blinds fit the size of our window, it is hard to gamble and wish for luck so we decided not to buy last night. We walk out the door and went to the supermarket to shop our food supplies.

[Photo courtesy of tookapic/pixabay.com]

I am trying to find the tape measure on my bag as what I have remembered I brought one here when I left my home country but I can’t find it, wish to find it soon so we can buy blinds for our window. It is quite disturbing  when the light in the garage is on.

I am so busy yesterday cleaning here in our apartment and doing some laundry. After cleaning we also undo the bathroom sink because it was plugged the water is slowly going down. We’re like a professional plumber eh, after finishing it there’s a lot of mess in the bathroom floor, molds are everywhere just so lucky the  Tile floor installation is smooth it is not bumpy like in our old apartment.

I also like our bathroom tiles and wall because it is all white so you know if the bathroom  is dirty or not, our old apartment tiles is not this good, it looks like made out of bricks what I mean the color resembles like the color of bricks so it is hard to tell if it is fully clean or not plus it leaves marks on my bathroom slipper so  when I brought my bathroom slipper here the brownish color was transferred to the white floor just so lucky that bleach helps me to remove it.

After cleaning our apartment and unplugging the sink I have to go to the store to buy olive oil for our supply then after it I washed our bed cover and clothes, it won’t fit into the washer so I need to do two loads. That makes me busy yesterday.

I have nothing to complain here in our new apartment aside from our window doesn’t have any curtains at all. So it’s bright here in the morning and in the evening because the garage is just beside us. The window too is facing our bed so I don’t know if people can see us here from outside, the glass window has an art style and thick too. So I guess they can’t see us inside on what we are doing except if they really intended to peep.

My husband and I is planning to buy a curtain but the problem is we don’t know how to wear it in our window without making a big fuss on it plus to tie it every morning, so as we looking for a perfect curtain online we have found that there is  made to measure pleated blinds that make us change our minds. Blinds are easy to manage than heavy curtains you can just pull the string if you want to fold it and for sure you cannot make blinds as wiping cloth for hands like what is it usually done in  curtains when someone is lazy to look for a dry cloth.  The good thing pleated blinds has also a selection of colors and  I can’t wait to have one maybe creamy white will be just right.