Movin' on up (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Movin' on up

12:51pm Monday 23rd April 2007

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On February 21 Lent began with a nice piece of news: the house I had been renting since September 2004 was being put up for sale.

Thus began an extended period in the wilderness, getting used to the idea of going and looking for a place and an environment in which I could feel at home.

My search took me into the city centre and more than three miles north of it. The city-centre soulless shoebox I looked at had a modern kitchen but neither wardrobes nor storage space.

The same applied to the other three modern apartments I saw in the Shipley area.

None of them were designed for bookshelves either. Come to think of it, how many glossy photos of super-modern apartments that you see ever include shelves of books? If there are any, they are usually decorative after-thoughts on glassy coffee-tables.

Finally I settled for large unfurnished rooms in a conversion and set about the business of transferring public utilities, mail and all the other things you have to do that now require endless phone calls to automatic numbers. Gone are the happier days when you could walk into an electricity shop and give your details to a human being.

In the midst of all this anxious activity I found myself wishing, more than once, that some benign agency would remove this burden from me.

In exchange for a sensible fee this enterprise, let's call it Home Movers, would undertake to make all your arrangements for you, from hiring removal men to making sure your computer was online within a day or two of moving in to your new home.

Your job would be to provide dates for moving out and moving in and the money for the rent, bond, mortgage, power bills and mail re-direction.

Perhaps such an enterprise already exists. If not I offer it as a possible business venture for a disillusioned estate agent.