There has been an informative
day organised
by a Housing Corporation for anyone intrested for a house,
as part of a project called Quarakter, in Lansingh-Zuid,
which is a new area in Krimpen aan den IJssel.
I was born in Rotterdam (area
IJsselmonde) and have lived
there with my mom until I was 19 to then move in with
my (then to be) husband who lived in the Rotterdam Zevenkamp
area.
Later, we moved "around the corner" as a family, to another block in 1991
where I still live.
Early 2002, my current husband
Gerrit, born in Krimpen aan de Lek, moved in with me
and my son but told us, he once would like to move back to that area.
Of course for me, this was quite unexpected; why ?
This is a nice house in a green area, public transportation
and highway close by and farmer area "just around the corner"...
But after some time, I was ready to
let go of the house and asked myself;
Oh well, wy not move? If that too will be a nice house
in a nice area, you have to make it a home yourself anyway.
Gerrit however, in the last 3 yrs he lived here in this area
called Zevenkamp, changed a bit; this house was
quite nice and the area was quiet and green, the only real bother was the
traffic jam to his work... the Algera
bridge was
thé problem, nothing more, nothing
less.
So now the tables were turned; I
kept my eye on houses in the papers, both rental as well as buying but now
Gerrit kept me from taking any actions.
But then we heard from this informative day for this new plan Quarakter,
we decided to go and see what that was.
Information was free and there were no strings attached and,
we weren't
the only one...
From the
website
about
Quarakter where
you also can see some photos:
On
Saturday November 12, it was the day!
The start of the house selling and
the rental of 287 houses in the Quarakter
project in Krimpen aan den IJssel.
With a huge party tent on location, all intrested were
called a warm welcome as of 11.00 am.
But at 10.00 am, it already got
crowded. Eventually, we had to keep people waiting
outside to make sure everyone could get their information in time and that went
on almost all day! Everyone could gather their info of
the houses they were intrested in and they could have their names on lists for
the houses they would like to buy or rent.
The last day of sending in your name to apply for a house was
November 30 for purchase of a house or appartement
and December 15, 2005 for the
rentals. They also have options to buy a house with
the assurance that the company will buy it back from you when you might want to
leave after a few years and there are 10
free simples. End
quote
So, with our hopes for a rental house, we went home with all
information we gathered and looked it over and over.
Our cuurent house is also a rental and we thought to apply
for a equal house in the same rental class.
Some days after we sent it in, we got called and told we couldn't apply for
those houses as my (little) money from work caused the rules for us to change.
Appearantly, we didn't have all info; we missed the one paper
that had those rules on it.
So we had to chose again and sent it in and then we didn't
hear much for a while.
Early January, I called them to ask if we would get our
papers back that we had sent in or if they would keep it in their archives. The
man asked me why I had that question.
So I told him, that we thought we weren't selected as we
hadn't heard anything prior to January 1, 2006 (which was the closing date to
send in tax info etc)
That's when the man told me they hadn't selected anyone yet
due to Christmas holidays; so we weren't denied yet.
Some time later, we received an invitation letter to join a
"lottery" for the 8 houses we wanted to apply for.
Rules were that, first everyone from the Krimpen aan den IJssel
area with a rental and then a purchased house would apply before we would.
The house we wanted to apply for now was from the type "Tijgersalamander"
and the lottery was set for February
,2, 2006.
Since we had been quite busy with a design heater in our
bathroom, we kinda had to hurry to be in time for the lottery.
On our way there we wondered, where they would put all those people as their
office wasn't that big.
Once inside, we got some coffee and shortly after, the door
was closed because everyone was here...
What do you mean everyone ? Where
are "all" those people that would apply before us? There was just a small group
of people here !
It
appeared that only 11 people were valid appliants for 8 houses so, the chance
that we sure would NOT get a house wasn't even that big.
Whe all names were checked it appeared that rental names were on a blew note,
purchasers on pink and all others (like us) on yellow.
Three people weren't there and sent in a note so the company could chose for
them if they were selected.
One by one, the notes were taken from the bowls, first the
blue ones.
The first family yelled with hapiness and since Gerrit and I
weren't expecting to be lucky, we weren't nerveous at all.
Suddenly the hand went to the pink bowl... there had been
only 5 rentals and the pink one, had only 1 !
So
the hand went to the yellow bowl where we were in.
Fast counting told us there had been 6 out so 2 more to go
for the yellow intresteds...
Still sure we wouldn't be taken out, I looked around me to
see who still was anxiously watching the lottery when suddenly my name was
called... Huh ? That's us !? Wow, we
won, we are selected !!
There were 2 hosues left to pick and we decided to go for the one at the corner
of a street as the other one left over would get toddler playgrounds and also a
place for older youth to hang out. This made me think
it would be best to have a young family go there. I
looked at Gerrit and said
somewhat dazed; It must be faith...
we have a house !
So all this is
the start of new pages where you can follow the preparation of the soil and the
building of our new house, our new to be home.
The expected date for the house to be ready is September 2007
This will be my
first move to a completely empty house as the house exchange I did in 1991
hadn't been really empty.
We moved our stuff to each others houses so when it comes to me, all this is
quite exciting.
Photo 1: the
soil where our house will be
We will have
to wait until there's more to see such as concrete flooring etc
but for now, compared to the map drawings we think, that our
block will be just some right and back of the lamppost.
