CHIAVARI, Italy - When I first moved to Italy back in
1990, my number one priority was to find an apartment. Little did I know what
was in store for me as I bravely, and blindly, stepped into the wonderful world
of Italian real estate.
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| Positano, Amalfi Coast |
Here we go:
1. Watch Your Language: They use local dialect in real
estate ads. What was confusing was that I never saw the word “rooms” as in
“number” of rooms.” Why? Because in Genoa the word for rooms is “vani”. In Milan
it’s “locali”.
2. Please Sit – Oh
Never Mind. Some apartments don’t have living rooms. My first
furnished (arredato) apartment in Italy was in the tiny borgo of Santa Maria
Quezzi, up in the hills behind Genoa. I was told it was a two bedroom
apartment, but there were only three rooms.
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| A Villa in Tuscany Might be Nice |
Hmmmm. One room was definitely the bedroom; the second
room had a bookcase/storage unit on one wall and a sofa. The third room was a
dining room with a round table and four chairs, an easy chair and a TV stand.
Since the easy chair matched the sofa in the dining room, I moved it into the
room where the sofa was, and made that the living room. But then I began to
notice something odd. Visitors were always very uncomfortable when I took them
into my “living room”. It eventually dawned on me that I was actually
entertaining my guests in what they thought of as a bedroom, but they were just
too polite to say anything. Ooops.
3. What is This? If you are renting a standard
unfurnished apartment it won’t have a kitchen – what I mean is you will not
find a stove, a refrigerator, a sink, cupboards or countertop. What you will
find is an empty room with water and gas pipes sticking out from one wall. It’s
up to you to put in the rest. Why? Beats me. And don’t forget, if you move you take
your “kitchen” with you and hopefully it will fit into your new apartment. Of course it hardly never does, fit that is,
but . . . . . . .
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| Umbria Anyone? |
4. I’ll Just Lean Here. If an apartment is listed as semi-furnished
it will have a kitchen with a stove, sink, refrigerator, cupboards and
countertop. But no actual furniture like tables and chairs.
5. Let the Séance Begin. Do not expect to find light
fixtures – anywhere in the apartment. Just wires sticking out of holes, color coded ghosts
of illuminations past. It’s up to you to buy fixtures and find an electrician
to install them. And keep his number because you’ll need him to remove the fixtures
when you move.
6. Can’t Hold Your Water? Double service (doppio
servizi) means two bathrooms.
7. Drip Dry. No towel racks or toothbrush/glass
holders but lots and lots of holes where previous tenants hung theirs. Good
luck trying to match up the whattacallthem fastener things of your new towel
racks and toothbrush/glass holders with the old holes.
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| How About a Truilli in Puglia? |
8. Just Put the Aspirin Bottle, ahhh ….Maybe there?
Your Italian bathroom will not have a medicine cabinet, or a mirror, or a
cabinet under the sink or a linen closet either. But it will have a bidet.
9. Walk In? Not Exactly. You will marvel at the amount
of space needed to put up an armoire that will give you 1/5 of the closet space
you could have if they would just hang a rod and put a door in front of it. You
will need a handyman/carpenter to assemble and disassemble your closets when
you move in and move out, unless of course your moving man can will do it.
10. Roll On. Apartment in dire need of a paint job?
It’s on you. If you don’t have friends
who can recommend a painter, your local paint store is the next best place to go.
If you are doing this in August, save your breath, the paint store will most
likely be closed. It doesn’t matter because all the painters are on vacation
anyway and you won’t see hide ‘nor hair of them until mid September.
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| Now That's What I Call a Room with a View |
11. Put a Lid On It. Garages are called boxes. Some
apartments may have a dispensa, which is a pantry, a ripostiglio, a broom
closet and/or a tinello, which is an ante-camera between the kitchen and the
living room for informal entertaining.
12. Four Plus Four. A normal rental contract is four
years plus four more years for a total of eight, or it can be four plus three,
or three plus two. There is no standard contract, but then again you really didn’t
expect there to be one, did you? Your
contract must be registered with the Comune (City Hall) in order for it to be legal
– and for you to have any rights as a tenant. If you want to cancel the
contract you must send your landlord a registered letter 6 months prior to the
expiration date.
13. Contrato Transitorio – the owner is not interested
in a permanent tenant. The rental contract is for 12 months max. That type of a rental contract doesn’t work
for someone like me because you can’t claim the apartment as your primary
residence, which is something I need to do if I want National Health Care coverage,
which I do. I suspect landlords do this
so they don’t get stuck with a tenant who doesn’t pay the rent. Evidently tenants who skip out without paying
the rent is a big problem here or else it’s just the Italians being their usual
overly cautious selves. I’ve been told – by real estate agents – that if you
are good – good meaning you pay your rent in full and on time, you can most
likely convert that transitorio contract into a regular contract.
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| Or Maybe Rome Suits Your Fancy |
14. Riscaldamento Autonomo - Loosely translated means you control your heat as
opposed to riscaldamento centralizzato, which means the condominium controls
the heat, which I have found less than agreeable since I don’t operate on an
Italian timetable. I get up early, I like to write in the morning, five o’clock
is not too early for me. This presents a problem because the heat doesn’t
usually come on until close to seven and for some odd reason I find it hard to
drink my morning coffee when my teeth are chattering let alone trying to type
with frozen fingers.
Now if this all sounds a bit intimidating and you would rather not have the hassle of trying to decipher real
estate ads in Italian, you can Google summer rentals in Italy – there are
hundreds of sites in English. You will pay a little more, but that’s
not terrible. In fact it's good because they are fully furnished. Either way, what your
Italian apartment will most likely have (depending where in Italy it is) are
marble floors, very high ceilings, a huge bathtub, unlimited hot water thanks
to a very clever water heating system, at least one balcony but usually two or
three, an interesting history if you are lucky, and best of all - when you step
outw the door - you will be in Italy, and that is priceless.
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