Moving to Scotland Part 3: The Flat from Hell

In my prior post, I mentioned that we thought flying to Scotland would be our last hurdle. I was so, so, so wrong.

Do you know what it takes to get cats into the UK if you don’t fly them in the hold? It takes flying to the EU first. The UK doesn’t allow you to have animals in the cabin, so my family didn’t feel great about that. We needed to get pet passports for the cats for both the UK and the EU, and our plan was to fly from Detroit to Amsterdam (8ish hours), then catch a ferry from Amsterdam to Newcastle, then drive to the flat in Kirkcaldy we’d been renting sight unseen.

When Emily, my wife, came back from the vet, we found that we only had EU paperwork. Not UK. And we didn’t have time to go back, as the paperwork had to be issued within 10 days of the flight, and my family had to be in the UK by the 20th for visa reasons.

I decided I was going to try to talk the cats through the border.

Worst case, they would end up in quarantine for three weeks.

We pulled 8 50lb check on pieces of luggage, 2 carry ons, and 4 backpacks, and 2 pet carriers through Detroit to check in and got the 8 check ins sent ahead. Got the cats verified, and then fly to Schipol with one cat unhappy the entire way as the four of us crammed into economy in a row.

I apologize to anyone on the flight who heard a pathetic big boy of a Siberian cat who resisted being drugged and sadly complained most of the way to Schipol. I don’t think any of us slept on the red eye flight. But we landed in Schipol on time, and we hauled all that luggage all the way across the length of Schipol, which had backed up lines due to, of all things, a security strike happening.

The cats were taken to a room and checked, and we took the luggage across Schipol to catch a van. We often had to move the luggage in stages, moving some of it over pavement to a place, leaving it with a kid, then going back to get the next back, and so on. Exhausting. But we were close! Almost there.

At the DFDS ferry dock, we moved our luggage into a waiting area and, nervously, checked the cats in. Since the EU pet passport has the same requirements as the UK pet passport, they shrugged and let us on. Then we had to move our luggage up a 3 story escalator and then up a slightly slanted 500 yard gang plank. Then we used a tiny two-person elevator on the ship to get the luggage to storage.

And we got into our ferry room for pets, had something to eat, watched the coast slip away, then pass through fields of giant wind turbines, before we were out to sea.

We slept hard, it had been a long 24 hours.

We woke up pulling into Newcastle. We were in the UK!

The cats were waved through!

The relief I felt as we piled our luggage into a rental van was immense.

I had a three hour drive ahead of me, and it had been at least ten years since I last drove on the left and navigated roundabouts, let alone in a van, but I’d opted for a full coverage insurance and was ready!

Excited even.

We drove through some of the most jaw-dropping coastal scenery on our way up to Kirkcaldy, and my excitement grew. The worst of it was over. We’d made it. I could breathe freely. Yes, a lot of work lay ahead to build new lives, but we’d gotten through the intense bit, right?

We got to the rental flat late Saturday.

It was dark, and we knew it was a humble place. We’d seen it as a landing spot, a way to get us into the UK. From there, we’d look for something better. But I couldn’t get the power turned on, I found some bills indicating the prior tenant had skipped out on months of payments, so the power company had locked down the power.

Defeated, we found a hotel to spend the weekend in. It was pretty much the last of the planned move money, so hit by two application fees for 3 family members, and renting for 18 months but not living there. But Monday would be better, I told myself.

On Monday, in the light of day, I got the power turned on, and we got into the flat.

On first glance, it was humble, old build, not too different from our first apartment as a couple.

But then, as I was getting the power on, my wife called out “are these T-shirts stuffed in the cracks for insulation?”

Indeed.

The fireplace had moldy pillows and bedding stuffed into it to stop the wind, and the sides were stuffed with T-shirts. The windows were open, we thought friends had aired out the place. No, half the windows blow open when the wind blows and wouldn’t shut. One had been shut with transparent tape, invisible to a video walk through, but visible when close. Another window was screwed shut with screws that stuck out several inches and had been painted over. The bathroom fan was so loud the entire flat was filled with the screech.

There was black mold in many places.

We were distraught by the condition, but rallied. This is was always going to be temporary until we found a good place to land, so let’s tidy it up for now then go looking.

We got to cleaning, I did mold remediation with products from the hardware store, we cleaned. For almost 7 hours.

And…

We slept on mattresses the first night, and as I tried to sleep, cigarette smoke from the apartment upstairs began to trickle through the un-insulated spaces into the flat. I have lung damage from a pulmonary embolism, so breathing began to be difficult. From below, the tanning salon’s chemicals began leaching up through the floor boards as well. By five in the morning I was having trouble breathing, and my lungs were in so much pain I was considering going to the hospital.

The next day we began strategizing. I called every letting agency in the area, and we found a short term let. But the price was crazy to have cats. But I needed somewhere I could breathe, and that we could be warm in and not exposed to mold. I found a short term rental, a VRBO, and got us in there, and then did a GoFundMe, which saved our asses as we’d used up our moving budget. We got the rental through to October 24th, and took all our suitcases and two cats into it.

I felt homeless.

I felt defeated.

But the generosity of everyone on the GoFundMe meant we had time to look for an apartment. Which I spent three weeks at. Every day calling, going to advice bureaus, anything I could think of. And finally, two apartments in Perth came up and put us on the short list.

We drove up right away, and just before that, Emily spotted a place in Stirling that popped up. I dashed off an application, and we saw the places in Perth. One felt… like the place we’d just left, but the windows did seal. The other was a good place, next to a golf course. And then the Stirling location reached out.

The next day we visited that one, and it was a proper apartment, and it was within walking distance of downtown Stirling, and the train station. That meant we could look for jobs in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth, or Dundee (or Stirling). I filled out a mountain of details, and we got approved to move on the 21st, as long as we were okay with some remodeling going on after we moved in.

Abso-fucking-lutely. I wanted us to get stuck in somewhere, and to give my family some stability.

Today is the 20th, tomorrow we move in.

Finally, after two years of trying, and 10 weeks of intense work, living out of suitcases for 4 of those, with confused cats, I can say we will be living in Stirling, Scotland for the immediate future.

I’m really, really looking forward to it.

And in part four, I’ll explain why I think it is going to be good.