Brighton

dunno if this will be good, bad or indifferent but just sayin:

hans joachim irmler & jaki liebezeit new
wed 17th jun
hope & ruin

Niiiiick you have to go. Also I am supposed to be supporting and I have *no* idea what I'm doing yet.

Also you should come to this on Saturday, it will be rad and also features me doing a thing where I'm not really sure what I'm doing... https://www.facebook.com/events/424680007694193/

Oh I might've guessed you'd have something to do with it :) Yes I should probably go. Maybe giant swan too, but if not - good luck!

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/06/several-people-hurt-as-brighton-buses-collide

nasty business indeed

Revive!

So once again we're talking about moving to Brighton. But this time I have to actually do something about it. I've got my work to agree to me working from home 3 days a week, so I'd only have to do the commute twice a week and not on consecutive days, so I might be able to cope with that. That starts in 2 weeks, so after that kicks in, I'm planning on coming down, working in a coffee shop during the day and arranging to view some flats in the evening, for as many times as necessary.

Got to admit I'm more than a little daunted by the prospect of moving, mainly because I've been in the same flat for 8.5 years and I've got comfortable (I used to move around quite frequently before that), but also because we've got 3 cats and I'm worried about finding it difficult to get rented accommodation that allows pets.

Can anyone provide reassuring words about how easy it is to find pet-friendly landlords in Brighton because everyone there is a massive hippy or something? Also I have heard horror stories about estate agents' fees which seem to have gone insane since 8 years ago, when I think we paid maybe £100 or something. What's the deal with that? Any agents to avoid? Argh.

On the plus side, yay living by the seaside and maybe my wife will find a job there when/if her health gets a bit better and we won't be constantly broke.

good plan poo! afraid i don't know much about renting anymore so i can't really help you on that side. if you're looking for places to sit and work though, there's free wifi in the central library if that helps?

Join us.

I just went through an agent and my fees were £180. If you look on Gumtree you can find lots of houseshares which are less likely to have fees, and also some private landlords.

I've got my work to agree to me working from home 3 days a week

rrrrrrrresult

Nick - yes that does help, don't need to be buying coffees all day.

Chewsh - which agent? Houseshares will be out, my wife will not countenance living with strangers (plus the cats would be a bit of a problem there I think), but might be worth a look on gumtree for landlords (I was wondering what people use these days instead of Loot. Oh wow Loot is still going?).

Tracer - I know, right?

It was Q Lettings, but I imagine most will have similar fees.

I always ask agents their costs when I book appointments.

This could be useful: http://www.letswithpets.org.uk/find-a-pet-friendly-letting-agency/search?postcode=brighton&distance=20&js_off=off

Nick - yes that does help, don't need to be buying coffees all day.

Bring a disc player with you and you can work your way through their extensive CD library which I don't think has been added to since ~2003

No wait, you'd probably have to be a member for that delightful privilege. Athlete CDs are for residents only!

This could be useful: http://www.letswithpets.org.uk/find-a-pet-friendly-letting-agency/search?postcode=brighton&distance=20&js_off=off

This could be very useful indeed! Thanks.

Ah, re fees, it looks like the £180 is per person, so that's £360, so it has gone up quite a bit from £100. Oh well.

I think it wasn't quite per person, it was broken down as £75 + vat admin + £75 + vat reference fee, it would depend if you were both liable for bills etc. possibly, but who knows as it is an entirely unregulated system.

This is happening.

Fees ended up being £390. They are charging for both of us even though I'm the only one working and paying the rent. Grrr.

last year my lad went to brighton for his uni.
he ended up in one little semi-detatched house that houses 6 students.
each one had to pay the estate agency fee of £180.
then when we arrived at the estate agents at the allocated time expecting proper handover/keys/inventory etc, they handed us a printed sheet and said that was their part in the process over.
on the piece of paper : the name and tel no. of the landlord.
easiest f*cking £1000 ever.

Lets arrange some kind of FAP/initiation ceremony.

Can we molotov a letting agent afterwards

Waste of good vodka.

Just realised it's petrol, not vodka. lol.

#gentrification

#gintrification

i'm game

which bit of brighton are you moving to cp?

I basically hate Brighton and want to leave as soon as I am well enough, but I would maybe be up for a very quiet pub meet of ilx0rs. I will say this is probably the worst place I have ever lived.

Emily I hope you do come to a nice quiet pub and hopefully we can help make you think Brighton is a better place in our small way.

^^^^ let's do this soon

meanwhile the programme for the laurie anderson brighton festival all looks a bit lame, am sorely tempted by her music for dogs performance though

lol matt you would hate this:

Haçienda Classical
House and club classics

The DJs who shaped the Haçienda sound, Graeme Park and Mike Pickering, will perform a continuous set of house and club classics alongside the Manchester Camerata Orchestra and special guests.

Taking the euphoria of the legendary club nights to a whole new level, Haçienda Classical is a unique meeting of styles.

Tickets
£27.50, £32.50 circle seated

You know me well. How about go to a club and actually have some fun fuckos?

But yeah, looked at the line-up today expecting some great stuff, and my jaw dropped, but in reverse.

I think the area I'm moving to is in Seven Dials, but I'm not sure where the borders are.

Is anyone going to see the Ex at the Hope & Ruin in April or the Downtown Boys at Green Door Store in May? Because if so I will probably see you there.

7 dials is good, pretty handy for getting to most places, but also easy to get out of brighton from there too.

will definitely be at the ex! always end up a shameful sweaty mess at their gigs though, you might not get a welcome hug

My flat's about 5 mins away from where the Ex are playing which I'm quite pleased about. I haven't seen them in a few years now, so it's great timing.

Will be at both of those badboys

Will probably be at one if not both.

Poo! I didn't realise you were moving to Brighton! Was having a quick look at this thread as we're thinking of visiting briefly as a part of a roughly-sketched-out-on-the-back-of-a-fag-packet plan to drive around bits of southern England later this year after a visit to That London. Would be good to meet up with you and Lady Poo (and other Brighton ILXors, naturally) if we do this.

That really does have to be high on the "ILXor names that must never break through into real life" list.

(I am not in Brighton, much, but I miss it)

It amuses me to use it, because I am puerile. I have never used it irl (though I do recall a map at an ATP once on which you had written Poo Chalet)

Well I'm here, but already got a problem... the flat we rented is basement and the landlords live upstairs, and this morning the agent called to say they'd reported smelling smoke and that it's a no smoking flat, including the outdoors patio. Might've been an idea to mention that, or even put it in the contract, before renting to us? Fucking wanker estate agents.

It's not even in the fucking Rightmove advert that it's no smoking (it's still on the site), cos we wouldn't have called if it was. Pricks.

As much as I can't stand the smell of the smoke myself, if it's not in writing anywhere there's nothing they can do as far as i know, with the expection of giving you the legal notice period.

Perhaps you could negotiate a rent decrease for any inconvenience of you having to smoke away from the property if you want to keep them on side?

Hmm that may depend on what is being smoked, although there was no mention of that in the phone call.

I think we're going to see if we can get out early. iirc there was some clause about giving 2 months notice, but I'm at work now so I can't check until I get home. We'll be down £500 estate agent parasite fees but I just cancelled the washing machine order I just made so there's £300.

I'm so pissed off about this. The agent said no pets when I looked around it, and we have cats. He actually phoned me back later and said the landlord had said he didn't mind cats after all so I could have the place after all. Why couldn't he have just, I dunno, been boiled alive in a barrel of his own piss instead, and we could've found another place?

Oh man, that was basically what happened to me when I moved here - landlord works upstairs rather than lives there, we'd specifically said to the agency we wanted somewhere that allowed smoking, guess who comes down to tell us it's a no-smoking property? However he did relent eventually when told that the agency had sold it to us as a smoking flat... PLUS it's unfurnished, even the curtains are mine, so what exactly is smoking gonna do to the place?

I think these days most agencies do have a clause where smoking being banned is the standard, and you have to get it in writing from your landlord that it's okay if you want to avoid getting shafted at the end of your lease? Not sure. Would be worth looking at the contract again, definitely.

Other option: turn to vaping.

It's definitely not in the contract at all, my wife is at home and read through it when I told her. She is not in the right frame of mind to parse the legal stuff about breaking the contract early so I have to wait til I get home to go over that.

It's also an unfurnished flat, and it's almost entirely wooden floors, and no curtains. I think it's just they don't like the smell drifting up to their part of the house, what with the ban on smoking in the back yard as well.

I'd probably be OK just vaping tbh, we do have one. But my wife is majorly pissed off about this and actually went straight upstairs and smoked a cigarette outside their front door earlier (hey they didn't say anything about smoking on the street), and is not willing to try and compromise on it. She wasn't that keen on the flat to begin with though (I went down and viewed it on my own, but tbf she did pick the advert off Rightmove). She's talking about going to stay with her mum for a month or 2 if we can get out of the contract so we can save the money to pay for the fees/moving again in a few months.