Handing over the keys: Our move to the apartment

There it is, the moment of handing over the keys: super unspectacular. After all the hickups surrounding the handover I actually expected a bit more.

How did it come to this? Briefly as follows:

In India, it is normal to put down a deposit, similar to Germany - only much higher. One (actually my company) deposits 11 months rent as a deposit.  I work for a large company, with a lot of processes that can take a long time and need to be followed consistently. There seemed to be some misunderstandings or other delays here, such as the Christmas season and also Indian holidays. Anyway, the deposit has not been paid yet.

The clarification that followed - which then took place between the agent, the landlord, HR, my boss, the site manager and us - is legendary. Countless WhatsApp messages, emails, calls to our site manager over the weekend and much support later, we are in the apartment at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday afternoon.
 
In fact, all parties are there then. Besides the suspected - the landlord Vishwanath, his wife Sowmya, both of us and the agent Murali - there are two more parties we didn't know about. The handover then runs relatively smoothly and the handing over of the keys unspectacular. Like nothing two maids are fetched, who are supposed to take over the cleaning. They are gone just as quickly as they arrived. In addition, electricians are brought in to do the final installations.

So we are very confident that we will move in as planned on Sunday.

It had been agreed that the mattresses in the guest room would be cleaned and we would get a new mattress in the master bedroom. Because of the missing deposit, the landlord had stopped all activities. Saturday afternoon, however, he makes an effort to still have the promised work done.
 
Because of the holiday, the mattress cannot be delivered on Sunday. So we extend our hotel one night. Nevertheless, we start on Sunday to drive our luggage and the tons of purchases (towels, cleaning supplies, dishes, decoration etc) from the Sheraton Hotel to the apartment. That not everything goes into one car was clear. So we set ourselves up for at least three trips. In the end there are four or five. But who counts...

The cleaning work in the apartment, we thought, was finished. So we just want to wipe through the closet once more and then put our clothes in. Four buckets of dirty water later, the closet really is clean. Now we only need the hangers...
 
Meanwhile, the man who is responsible for cleaning the mattresses is in the next room. Until he notices that he doesn't have a bucket with him. So he goes to buy a bucket, comes back shortly after and shampoos the mattresses.

In parallel we order 15 liters of water. We are not allowed to drink the tap water in India, to use it for brushing teeth or washing dishes. Since the water purification filter in our apartment has not yet been replaced, we need water from canisters, which I order via app.

While we're at it, I order a few more staples. And milk, which for the initiation ritual on Monday morning. Then, a priest will come to us for the puja. When the delivery arrives and we open the refrigerator, we find that it is not clean, nor does it smell good. So next we clean the refrigerator. Unfortunately, the kitchen cabinets are not clean either, let alone the cabinets in the living room. Eventually we give up. Hopefully service will come tomorrow to help us with all this.

We order lunch and wait for our table to be delivered. A table arrives. The wrong one. It will probably be replaced this week, because I really don't like it.

Tired we go back to the hotel. After there is also brief excitement - because of our extension, which unfortunately did not make it into the system - the end of the day finally begins. We end the day at the bar in the Sheraton. Tomorrow we meet the landlords again and hope to be able to clarify everything then.

We are very excited to finally move into the apartment. It will be our cozy retreat.
Despite all the difficulties we had today, I really have to say that the people are insanely friendly and helpful. Even if not everything works out the way we want it to, we are always surrounded by friendly and accommodating people who let us take even the challenges with a bit more ease.

Whether the misunderstandings about the apartment are due to the fact that we communicate differently for cultural reasons, we cannot say yet. In any case, there were a lot of parties involved. Like the children's game 'whispering mail', from the first to the last person in the chain, there is always a bit of something lost, and only with luck does something arrive at the end that resembles what was said at the beginning. Since the communication went through so many intermediate points, it is not surprising that in the end not everything was understood as it was meant at the beginning.

What we also experienced this weekend are the incredible possibilities of digital services. You can order almost anything via app. We ordered food directly to our home and also a packed lunch. No cooking is allowed on the stove before the initiation ritual. Admission to the community is also done via app. If someone is at the gate, we receive a message. We can allow or deny the person access to the site via cell phone. Let's see, maybe tomorrow we can even order a cleaning service via app?

Want to know what happens after you move in? Then find out how a traditional ceremony will ensure a good house blessing in our apartment: Pooja - Ritual for a Good Start.