We went to look at a house to rent recently. It was great, lovely parquet floor in the big salon, plenty of light.
Then we went upstairs and found dirty, stained carptets.
This is odd. Spanish people, in general do not like carpet. Trying to rent a house with carpet in Madrid is practically insane. The chances of getting the rental agreement signed are near impossible!
In a cold country carpet is nice, it keeps your feet warm in winter, but in a climate like Madrid’s that tops out regularly at 35-40ºC in summer? Carpet? Madness.
And a stained carpet to boot!
The funny thing is that the owners had just repainted the whole house and re-varnished the parquet downstairs.
“Do you think they’ll change the carpet?” we asked the agent.
“I doubt it,” she said, “they’ve just spent a fortune painting and redoing the floor in the salon.”
That’s like going on a date in filthy clothes, and saying, ‘it’s OK, I just washed my hair’ – chances of success = zero.
There’s one house that’s never going to go off the market.
(Reminds me of trying to rent a flat in Spain years ago, and being attacked by a savage Siamese cat – another flat that probably never got rented! Full story in Errant in Iberia!)
David Green
14 Sep 11 at 2:24 pm
Reminds me of a podcast I once heard about Spanglish, in which a lady said ‘tengo que vacunar la carpeta’ (vaccinate the folder?) :-p
Mo
15 Sep 11 at 2:17 pm
Gosh, what a great simile – going on a date in filthy clothes but with your hair washed! One of the great things about Spain is that it´s a carpet-free zone (normally) even if my daughter (aka Malassie) still confuses carpet with carpeta! I assume you didn´t rent this place! Mo.