First look at my place

First look at my place

            Great news everyone! I've got a new place- and this is it!  Pretty awesome right?  I looked at that, decided it was a big tacky. As most of you know, my rent went up 50% so I needed to find someplace new to live and work. This was a lot trickier than it seems. First, we don't really have live/work loft spaces where you can use tools in Shenzhen; it's just not a thing here. I looked at a few where it was a small factory space and an apartment a few blocks away, the more I looked at it, then thought about potential safety issues- the worse an idea it seemed. I'm really, really lucky, I've never had a genuinely bad experience with stalkers or anything like that I have good situational awareness. I have someone who goes places with me if I need, and while I like going out for a drink I get up before 7 am every day so I tend to leave well before people start get drunk and rowdy. But...I've noticed that things are changing.

              When I go out these days a lot more people seem to know me now, and even with those who don't know me are paying more attention than they used to. Which I'm OK with and mostly enjoy, but I have to take these changes into account when I think about safety and living arrangements. A predictable route between an apartment and a workshop, going back and forth at all hours, day and night, given how I look, in a manufacturing district with a transient worker population, with little CCTV coverage. As safe as Shenzhen is, maybe not such a great idea.

                   You can only roll the dice so many times and it's not practical to have someone walk me back and forth every time I need to go into the workshop. So I decided pretty early it would need to be a single live/work location and that location would need to be pretty secure in case anyone decided to visit. Unfortunately, you can't live in commercial property; the zoning regulations are quite strict. But you can run a business in some kinds of home.

               Shenzhen is a very business-friendly city- that's the whole reason Deng Xiao Ping dreamed it up, but it's not so friendly to home renters. Rents are astronomical for China, and not because there's a lack of space. It's because for most Chinese property is primarily a store of wealth, like stocks. Often owners are content to let them sit empty, sometimes they rent them out just to make a little money until they sell them and buy another. Which they do constantly. Because of this, as a tenant, you don't have a lot of rights. If you remember Scotty Allen- Strange Parts? He got evicted with almost no notice from his apartment for no reason and this is very common. With all my tools and machines- I could never find a place on short notice, and I would lose any work I put into the place. Often they keep your two-month deposit also because the standard lease lets them claim just about any reason to do so.

Landlords are not motivated to rent since there are no property taxes so potential tenants like me aren't in the best position to bargain with them. I needed a place that I could live, work, and a landlord that would sign the lease my lawyer wrote to protect me- not the standard one that is awful for tenants.
                                It also could not be an apartment or adjoining a house since I want some pretty noisy tools. This has taken the last few months and it's why I've been so busy. The most important lesson I learned during this, is that for a small business person lawyers are awesome. I would find a place I love, be ready to sign, show my lawyer the contract and he'd be all "Don't sign that!" he was right of course, a lot of places really tried to take advantage of me. Some would require me to pay massive compensation if the owner decided there was minor damage. Some the people who claimed to be the owner were not, and it was held by proxy but they would not have the actual legal owner sign the lease- really shady stuff. I looked at about sixty places, ten I could work with; three were legitimate and would sign my lease.

                 This was the best of those. And I worked really, really hard to get it and bargained for weeks. While it's at the absolute limit of my budget, and I'm probably going to sublet upstairs to some friends, I finally have room for all the tools and projects I've been dreaming of showing all of you.

It's still technically in the city of Shenzhen but it's a bit remote- but not so far that meetings and stuff are inconvenient. It's not quite one of those Chinese ghost developments you hear about- but not far from it. But I'll do fine with an electric bicycle. I'm going to have to do a lot of work, it's in pretty rough shape, there's no kitchen or hot water yet- but even if I rent out upstairs it's very large with room to really grow my channel with serious machine tools.

                     The outside is also in much better shape than the inside so at least I don't think leaks will be a problem.  My videos will be a little less polished for the next few months as I slowly make improvements. I'm going to try to do as much of that myself but some stuff like electrical or installing a hot water heater I'm going to have to hire someone to deal with, it's just not safe or sensible for me to do that on my own. I'm also going to need to buy some good electrical hand tools for the renovations, it makes sense to buy something decent since I can review them when I use them and maybe make a bit back off affiliate links. Worth a try at least.  I might ask with some help later buying some tools, but right now I have it under control. OK let me show you some of the rooms I've already cleaned up! The rest are a bit shabby and embarrassing so I don't want to show them yet. So the workers have been cleaning up since yesterday. Today they are still cleaning. All the rooms are empty.

                  The ACs are pretty old. Yesterday the cleaning guy told me that the ACs must be 10 years old, but at least they got all the dirt out. There is the balcony. Oh, so hot outside. And these are my neighbors.  That's where I just sat down and talked.

Look at this big window; because I don't have the curtain right now, it's so sunny it should be good for filming. I think this will be the meeting room for me. That's the last renter's logo.

            This should be my meeting room. On each floor, there is a bathroom. This is also an empty room; I think this should be a storage room for my machine tools. The workers took off all the windows to clean them, they are professional. The bathroom is a little rough because see there is no lid on each toilet.  I don't know why. I definitely need to buy the lid for every bathroom. Oh this one has a lid. But each one let me tell you, each toilet is a different brand. I don't know why. And they also have the old AC in here. It's pretty hot in here. It's all empty and the kitchen is not fixed and a lot of things are not done yet. So I just brought a few things here, and I'm going to live with a cot, and a pot. For a couple of days. I know it's tiring; it's definitely tiring for me.  But I'm determined to do this, I'm determined to grow my channel and do this, I think everybody goes through the same thing. Probably not as dramatic as me. It's pretty hot in here but I got this place to work with. You know, for an ordinary girl this is something, probably not anything for you, but it's something for me. They're breaking the glass . So it's also raining right now. OMG I stepped on some glass (I'm ok, not cut).You know I showed you the glass (tank) before. Now it's all smashed. So the AC wasn't working and I feel so bad because

the workers they are so hard working and we were all sweaty and I can't you know? I feel a little bit dizzy and I could probably get sick, my voice is- you know? So I have to get some air outside, so I went outside. Now I'm looking for AC, and it's also raining and I don't have an umbrella. I didn't have a proper kitchen or...there is no kitchen.

               I have to wait for the workers to assemble it. Usually, when people come to my apartment to help me assemble stuff, put stuff up. In my apartment usually I will treat them to a meal; I will cook for them myself. You know show the proper hospitality? But today is not that day and I feel so bad because the worker has been working so hard. But I did order some food for them. Hopefully, they enjoy the meal and maybe next time when they come by I can cook them a proper meal when my kitchen is all installed and stuff.