The various vagaries of houses
One of the many delights of travel is getting the hang of how things work in other people’s houses. It doesn’t matter which country you’re in, even which town or suburb in Australia, everyone’s got their thing, those tiny little knacks and tips we all subconsciously follow in our own homes. You only remember you instinctively pull the shower door inwards an extra centimetre when your houseguest floods the bathroom.
There are finessed rules unique to every specific house - lifting the catch slightly to get the key in the door, double locking everything anti-clockwise, putting the spare key in the spare fridge in the garage, enabling the alarms twice, parking in the specific space between the garage and the fence, folding away the hills hoist style washing line with its cover after every use. Not to mention the thousands of different ways that showers work, only discoverable when you’ve drenched yourself in freezing water when twiddling with the unmarked knob.
Travelling in the UK, I’m always amusingly reminded at how many tiny foibles every (usually old) house has, each one different to the next. My niece lives in the Cotswolds in a beautiful house, with lots of rooms, two bathrooms but no shower. ‘You’ll just have to dunk your head in the bath like when you lived in England before,’ she announced with glee.
I moved to Australia in 1991 so it’s been a while – too long in fact – and I couldn’t bring myself to do it, electing instead to save my hair wash for my next stopover.
On to my sister’s, which is a nineteenth century beautiful Queen Anne building. There is a shower, but it’s stopped working, as has the cold tap in the bathroom. The hot taps works, but turns the opposite way to other taps, so you have to know this and get in quick with washing your hands before you get scalded. There was early talk with friends who live in London of a house swap, but when plans fell through my friend admitted she was slightly relieved. ‘We had no idea how to explain the ins and outs of how the hot water system works,’ she said, which is apparently as unreliable and fickle as a teenager (though at least you can give it a good thump to get going – potentially as effective but not advised for offspring).
Modern barriers of entry are just as bad – hell hath no fury like a house full of people all attempting to work, study and trawl the socials if the Wi-Fi is down.
Something only people who dwell in cold climates know is that central heating – i.e. heated water running throughout the house into radiators - has to be left on if you go on holiday in winter. This is common knowledge passed on via osmosis but does not exist in any house instruction manual. So, if you are Australians living for a year in the UK, and you’re renting a house, and you go away in winter, prepare to get caught short and be presented with an eye watering bill when the pipes split. Ignorance is no defence. And no, I didn’t remember this quirky foible from my childhood in the UK – I left when I was 24!
Be prepared if staying with an elderly relative in an elderly house as they most likely have been living frugally, ferrying buckets from the well in the garden and hand washing their smalls with aid of a mangle. The best tale of woe I heard was a guy between houses, who pitched up with his family to stay with Great Uncle Ted in his Victorian pile. Turning up the heating in the freezing house alas caused one of the ancient, rusted-in radiators to leak. The spill soaked through the upstairs floor, only discovered when puddles started appearing on the irreplaceable parquet flooring. Luckily, the water found another way through – down the velvet floor length curtains, causing them to shrink. They tried to do some washing in the machine, but it was so old (and disused) the seal had perished, and the kitchen was flooded. Then all the toilets got blocked from overuse – not accustomed to five times their normal flow. Ensuing days were spent removed the ’waste,’ using a metal rod to clear it which then smashed the antique porcelain toilet.
But think of the memories!