Moving out. Moving in. Not necessarily in this order.

It's a story about how LEAAA, Baby Panda and Granny Beli decided to move out of their flat.

So, last week, our landlady announced us that in fact she had forgotten to tell us about some obscure fees we were supposed to pay and raised our monthly rent from 4000Yuan to 4300.
As those who talk with me on a regular basis know, we having some troubles with the said flat. 3 bedrooms, two bathrooms and an gigantic living room.
For someone who lives in France, the rent seems ridiculously cheap, but it's actually quite expensive for China. Not unreasonable but still.
When Lea sign the renting contract in September it felt perfect. Brand new, close to the university, nice bedrooms and a big living room to stay together, no neighbours, and cool in the summer.
Months passed and we slowly realised that it was not such a nice place after a while. We had no neighbours because the residence is still in construction, and our flat was one of the first to be finished so we actually lived in the middle of a construction site. and being waken up by a drill in the flat next door is quite unpleasant, and it grows nerves wrecking when you have to live with it on a daily basis.
Another problem, was that if the flat was cool in summer it was also damn cold in winder. There was no heater except in our bedrooms. and since we had no neighbours, we couldn't really count on that to get a warmer flat. The summer in Wuhan is one of the most intense in China, it lasts from May to early October. But from October to late march, it's crazily cold here. We got to a point where we only lived in our bedrooms because it was impossible to stay in the living room. (I'm not kidding. My hands were turning blue and I couldn't write.)

So when our landlady asked for more money, Lea started to swear in Russian and decided we were to move out of this place.
I literally did not care about it. As long as I have somewhere to put my stuff and some Wi-Fi, it's not hard to convince me, As long as no one asked me to take care of it, I was in. Carine agreed and the two of them started to look at flats in the internet.
The next day they visited 3 flats, chose one that matched our criterions (cheap, close to university, at least two bedrooms and WARM) and made an appointment on the next day for me to visit it. I visited it and agreed with the girls. It's not a palace but it would do. We are actually closer to my university, I have a bedroom and it's definitely warmer here than in our former flat.
We agreed with the agent to sign the papers on Monday.
We met with our soon to be former landlady to tell here we were leaving and asked to be refunded for the 2 months of rent we had paid in advance. She agreed (she's keeping the deposit anyway) and we agreed on giving the keys back on Wednesday.

Here comes Monday and I sign for my first flat. (We put my name in the contract because I will be staying here longer than the girls.) And we started to move our stuff in our new flat.
We were not even moving a kilometre away from our flat so we decided not to rent a truck to move our stuff.
I didn't move all of my stuff, because, very obviously there was no heater on my bedroom. (the flat is warmer because our downstairs neighbours heat their place) So I stayed one more night in our former flat.
So on Tuesday, after my classes, I went out with Lea to by a heater for my bedroom and then I moved the rest of the stuff we had left in the former flat while the girls went on an epic quest to find the right internet company to get the Wi-Fi installed.
After 7 go and back from a flat to the other, 7 huge suitcase weighting between 15 and 25 kilos, and approximately 18 bags, I moved all of my stuff and the common possessions of the flat.
And here I am in MY new flat.

The technician came the next morning to install the Wi-Fi and we were finally home.
But it couldn't have been so easy, so our landlady decided to break her word and not to give us back our money back because she wouldn't be able to rent the flat before several months since we are between two semesters. We had a couple of friends to look at our contract and basically we told her that it was not our problem and that she had the deposit and her eyes to cry. (My Chinese might not be good but I'm a tough negotiator and I was in no mood to let a small and angry little Chinese woman dictate me how things were going to go.) So we got our money back and went home in our new flat.

I can't believe the whole story only took five days. It was messy and we more than one wished we could punch some faces but hey, at the end it was pretty efficient.
That's quite a good sum up of China I guess. "It's messy." But if you have the nerves to fight and argue and to kick a couple of asses once in a while you get the shit done pretty quickly.