5. Portugal — The Land of the Light — The Rented House
For the previous part of the story click this link https://heartbreakandhappiness.medium.com/4-from-wales-to-portugal-part-3-final-acb97f6ebe23?sk=b0146acbd88f61888e09bdc432addf45
We were both so happy to have finally made it although a little sad at leaving our friends and family and also having to leave the pigs behind. We wanted to take them with us but it was impossible and we knew they were fine and had gone to live just a few metres away with our neighbour Alan, he was going to keep them for land clearing and chicken protectors just as we had done. We got through customs and managed to find the road we needed to take to get to our final destination, our beautiful rented farm and house in Rego da Murta, central Portugal. We hadn’t seen the house in person, just photographs from the agent and landlords. It was in a central location with no neighbours, 3 hectares of land that was all fenced in so plenty of room for the dogs to run around safely, stables, the main house and a guest cottage. The house was unfurnished apart from kitchen appliances but the guest house was fully equipped and we planned to relax for a few months there before we started our search for a property to buy. The landlord and landlady were a British couple who had lived in Portugal for a while but it hadn’t worked out for them and they had left to go back to England, the house had been on the rental market for over a year before we found it. They were originally asking 650 euros per month but I had haggled them down to 450 GBP a month instead and we had paid them 5 months rent, 2 for the months we were still in Wales and they held it for us and 3 in advance for when we got there, there was also a gardener who would come weekly and keep us supplied with firewood from the farm for the log burner in the living room. Leon was going to go back to the UK every few months to work and it was only an hour’s drive from Lisbon airport.
The landlord wasn’t so clear with directions but we knew roughly the area we needed to get to and I had maps upon maps on my lap. Typically the smartphone GPS didn’t work on arrival so we prayed that the maps would take us in the right direction as we had a 12 hour drive ahead of us. Leon had never driven on the other side of the road before so was a little nervous to start, especially pulling the caravan with Mandy. The dogs had all settled down apart from Sunny who had been on high alert since we left Wales, I don’t think she slept at all on the boat and was overly anxious and excited. The drive was long but uneventful apart from my constant shouts of slow down to Leon who kept forgetting he was towing a caravan until it started zigzagging behind us, my nerves were terrible and I kept worrying Mandy would break down again, we had full cover against it but it would be a nightmare to be stuck on the side of a strange road with all the dogs, us and the caravan.
Mandy was amazing and kept on going and we finally arrived very late that night about 2am in the village and tried to find the house, at one point Leon was on the wrong side of the road and another car beeped at us and flashed his lights. We then realised we had gone past the turning and needed to turn around, not an easy feat when you’re attached to a caravan on a tiny Portuguese road. Leon gave up and said he couldn’t do it, we started to argue and he refused to drive for another second so we were just stuck in this little lane. I told him to get out and let me drive, I’ve driven all sorts over the years and one of us had to get us moving and seeing as it wasn’t going to be him it had to be me. I reversed Mandy and started to turn her down a little road until I heard a bump which was apparently me hitting the edge of a house with the caravan so that was my cue to give her some revs and spin her back up and down the road we were supposed to be on. No damage was done and we saw the sign for the rented house a few metres away. We pulled into the drive and the house looked just like it did in the photos. I found the keys under the mat and we made our way to the guest cottage that we would sleep in that night until the landlord and agent met us the next morning with the keys to the main house.
We brought the dogs inside and it looked really nice but it hadn’t been used in a very long time and there were dead flies and insects everywhere. Sunny grabbed her blanket and lay down on the floor and pulled it over her head, she went to sleep then and there, Leon and I laughed as she must have been totally exhausted, she hadn’t slept at all the entire journey. We got some bedding and cleaned the bedroom as best we could then went to bed absolutely exhausted and woke up to the bright sunshine blasting through the windows, we were in Portugal!! We went outside to take a look, we wanted to close the gates to keep the dogs inside the property but found there weren’t any gates although the landlord had told us it was totally secure and fenced in. We also saw a neighbour waving from her house a few metres away from us, we looked at each other a little surprised as there wasn’t supposed to be any neighbours at all around the property but never mind. The landlord arrived about 9am with his daughter and opened up the house, it looked very beautiful and he gave us the keys to the stables, the outbuildings, and the main house and then took us all around the farm to show us the menage his wife had had built for her horses and the boundaries with the neighbours, I decided not to mention he had told us there weren’t any neighbours.
We signed the contract with the agent who had arrived and as I couldn’t read Portuguese I had to assume it was all correct, we also signed for the electricity and water for the entire property to be put into my name, they wished us well and they left. We emptied all our possessions out of the caravan and moved it up to the stables, we took the furniture from the guest house and put it into the main house for us to use. There was a huge bedroom upstairs with an en-suite bathroom and another bedroom downstairs with a kitchen, pantry and living room. I decided to have a shower once I had cleaned the bathroom and was just starting to enjoy it when Leon screamed at me to turn it off. There was water coming through the ceiling into the downstairs living area. I turned it off and grabbed a towel and went to see what the matter was, the room was flooded. We mopped it all up and I called the landlord, he said for me to try and find a plumber and they would reimburse us, we could use the downstairs shower in the meantime. That night it was a little cold so we tried to light the boiler, it wouldn’t light, the showers were electric so they weren’t a problem for hot water but the kitchen hot water was from the boiler so we didn’t have any in there either, we decided to fully investigate and see what was working and found out that all the appliances were dead. The fridge didn’t work neither did the oven, nor the washing machine nor the heating system, it appeared all we had were lights, the gas hob and a downstairs shower.
We went to bed a little disappointed as now we had a ton of problems to sort out and we just wanted to relax for a while. We woke up early to the most disgusting smell and thought one of the dogs had been to the toilet but we quickly realised the smell was coming from our en-suite bathroom and up through the plugholes and the vents, we got some toilet roll and blocked them all up to try to stop it, then there was a knock at the front door. I went to answer and there was an old Portuguese lady there, I had no idea what she was saying but I understood something about water and a problem. I told her to wait while I went to get my phone and found the agent’s number, I called her and handed the phone to the old lady. There was some heated discussion and the old lady gave me the phone back and walked away. I asked the agent what the problem was and she explained that the lady was not happy, the owners had done some building work and had blocked off her water supply and she hadn’t been able to grow her vegetables or take care of her garden in over a year and had no way of contacting them until she saw us move in the day before. The agent was going to come and meet her at our new house the next day so she could show her the problem. I called the landlord, this time his wife answered, it was the first time I had spoken to her as I had always dealt with her husband, she was so rude on the phone to me I was a little shocked.
I first told her about the old lady who had called and she told me that the Portuguese like to complain about everything and not to worry about it and to ignore her, I said but surely if something has happened to stop her water you need to resolve it and she said it was none of my business and to leave it to the agent to deal with and she would speak to her directly. I then told her about the boiler, hot water system and the filthy smell, she told us to call the gardener who knew the house and would be able to fix everything, so I called him. He turned up with his wife that afternoon, he had no idea how to fix the boiler or any of the other problems and said I should call the landlord back to explain he couldn’t do it. The gardener and his wife were friendly enough and told us they lived in the next village and asked us to go with them for a drink one night, we explained we didn’t really drink and it was a bit difficult for us to leave the dogs at the moment, they seemed shocked we were Brits who had moved to Portugal and didn’t drink. The wife told us she kept horses and asked if it would be ok if she brought them down to graze on some of the land, we said we didn’t mind at all but for her to take them to the further part of the farm and away from the house and the dogs, she seemed ok with this and they left happy and smiling.
I called the landlord and again his wife answered, she seemed really angry with us, I kept trying to be nice and explained we needed the boiler to work and all the appliances which were part of the rental agreement. She suggested we go and buy any appliances that we needed and when we left we could then take them with us, she also told me to go and find the local hardware shop, they would know of a local plumber and to give them her email address so they could send the bill directly to her and she would pay for it. We were amazed by her attitude but went the next day to find the hardware shop, the man was really friendly to us until I told him the house we were renting and what the landlady had suggested. There was a total change of attitude and a direct no to sending the landlady the invoice by email and if he spoke to a plumber we would have to pay him cash on the day, we agreed to this and he called the plumber to fix the boiler but another plumber would be needed to fix the shower and the smell. The boiler man arrived the following day and showed me the problem, rats had infested the boiler which had no cables left inside as they had all been completely chewed, I took a photo as evidence to send to the horrible landlady. He managed to fix it and I called the landlady back to tell her it had been repaired, sending her the photo first and explained it had cost 190 Euros which I would be taking off the next monthly rental that I would send her in a few months, she asked for a copy of the invoice by email and hung up on me. On further investigation we could see rat and mice droppings everywhere, they had chewed all the cables for the oven and the refrigerator.
The agent came to meet the old lady at the house that afternoon and they went for a walk around the farm so the lady could show the agent the problem and sure enough they had redirected her water supply when they did the renovations and left the woman with nothing which they agent told me was illegal and they would have to resolve. We felt like we were living in the house that Jack built, nothing worked and what looked beautiful from the outside was really badly built inside, even the supporting roof beams upstairs moved from side to side swinging, it was really bad and dangerous but it was our home for the next few months so we just had to work around these things. Moving from an off grid life back into a normal house was strange and I wondered if I would get used to it again, even though nothing worked it was still very different from life down the fields. I started to dislike being able to just turn on a tap and watching the water come out, flushing the toilet and wondering who would now have to deal with my poo, flicking on a light and watching the electric meter clocking up the units and how much it was going to cost us when the bill came in. We’d only been there for a few days and I was already starting to miss the fields, having no neighbours, being able to open the door and the dogs running in and out secure, seeing nothing man-made all around me, this wasn’t the life that I wanted.
We’d been in the new house for a week and the only problem that was resolved was the heating system, nothing still worked but after living down the fields we had become very resourceful so we just worked around it, we decided to take the dogs for a walk around the farm and to have a proper look at the land. We put them all on their leads and took 3 each and set off, we could see lots of olive trees and fenced areas that had once been used for horses and then made our way up to the menage. Leon stopped me and said not to go any further, he saw pine processionary nests in the pine trees surrounding the menage, if you don’t know about these caterpillars that make the nests they are deadly for dogs. We’d read about them before we arrived and Leon recognised them immediately and said they were a massive problem and we couldn’t let the dogs go anywhere near this area. The nests needed to be removed and we’d have to call the landlord again to tell him. I had a sinking feeling as I knew I’d probably speak to his wife and she wouldn’t be happy.
Once again I called her and this time she totally lost her mind, she told us we weren’t allowed to use the land at the farm at all and only the main house and guest house were part of the agreement, the land was separate and we could only use it if we paid her another 200 GBP per month. I told her absolutely no way would we pay anymore, the whole property was part of the deal and I had emails and correspondence with her husband to prove that, I also had the electricity and water supply for the stables in my name and why on earth would I agree to pay for something that I couldn’t use, she was making no sense at all. She ended the call and I was furious, I called the agent and they were as surprised as we were, as far as they were aware we had rented the entire property and had been with us when the landlord took us all around and gave us the keys for the stables and showed us the boundaries, now the owners were trying to get more money from us for something we had already paid for, they suggested we give notice and leave! The agents were as much use as a chocolate teapot, Leon and I just sat in the kitchen in disbelief, what were we going to do now, there was no way we were going to pay any more money, the house was already not as advertised. We decided we would start the hunt for our forever home immediately and would leave this place as soon as humanly possible…..to be continued
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