Cathy's rant of the day

Please, pass the valium before I go postal on somebodys arse.....sorry...its just, i am currently searching for a house in what seems to have become a suddenly outrageous and competitve Innercity Brisbane rental market and I have reached breaking point..

Now, I am a Brissy gal, born and bred and have been renting Innercity since 1995 and I have always lived in awesome pads in great locations for piss all rent, but for the first time I am struggling to find something for us thats under $650 a week!! I mean, geeez, thats a lot right!? And even the expensive ones are, to quote my 8 yr old son "complete crap holes", yet still have 600 people rushing to fill in applications, even though you need a degree in astro physics just to get through PART A of your national security clearance and ASIO identification check.

My first Innercity place when I was 21 cost $165 a week and all the references I needed was that I had $100 bond, a tv that worked and my own bong. It was right in the heart of the action of Paddo and was noisy, dirty and awesome!

Although, thinking about it, I shared that house with 3 smelly skaterboys and slept in a small sleepout which I had somehow managed to squeeze my queen size waterbed into (try lugging one of them from share house to share house, it's not easy....but cool) that had a curtain as a door. It was just me, my bed, my clothes and my dreams. Not too difficult to house I guess.

Don't get me reminiscing of the first place that my all mine...my Red Hill granny flat in 1998 that was a two bedroom home with a huge deck that overlooked an innercity rain forest. It was my Punk Rock Single Mother Paradise. Just me and my adorable 1 yr old son, Seven, oh and a deck full of girls, smoking cigarettes, drinking red wine and giving me my Girl Power, all for $155 a week including utilities. We lived there for 3yrs and the rent never increased!

Hmmmmm...reading back on this I guess 17 yrs have passed since that first place and I have aquired alot of stuff to be housed since then: one husband, 2 children, 1 siberian husky, 2 cats, 3 cars (one a hot pink 1973 beetle that needs a garage) huge furniture and lots of other crazy crap. Alot to house.....

So as I sit here waiting to hear if we beat out all the other applicants for the 4 bed, 2 bath, fenced for the dog, with a pool and a built in playground in the leafy backyard, opposite the park in a safe, quiet street in Bardon near my sons school, I wonder if the Innercity rental market really has changed...or doh!...is it me???

I blame the children.

Cathy xx

Cathy wears many hats. Wife, mother of two sons, CEO of Little Monsters Pty Ltd and Cake Pop Queen just to name a few. She subscribes to the theory that Cathiness is next to Godliness. And on Fridays she behaves like a 50s housewife by sedating herself and cooking, baking and ironing, and being nice to her husband. Any other day is a crapshoot.