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Like many life adventures, this one was born from frustration. I felt caged in and desperately needed to escape.
Make no mistake, South Africa is a beautiful country, and my roots here go deep, but it also has:
- Unnaturally high levels of violent crime
- Extremely corrupt politicians
- Failing infrastructure
- Bankrupt Utility Services and Municipalities
- Bias against white people, endorsed by government policies
- The threat of expropriation of property, without compensation for it. This affects farmers but can be abused everywhere.
I am lucky. I actually have a permanent and full-time government position. It doesn’t pay much, but it pays better than 80% of everywhere else. I own the roof over my head (in partnership with the bank) and have the use of a reasonably reliable vehicle. On top of that, I have decent medical aid and my pension plan is well-administrated.
The problem is that I want something new and different, preferably where I don’t dread going to work and coming home every day. I want fresh experiences and to travel without fear, visiting the places I have only ever read about, and maybe some others that are not in travel guides. And I want a more eco-friendly lifestyle, supported by the Powers that Be.
I looked at Europe, as an alternative. Spain, Ireland, and Greece were considered and dismissed. (England was never an option.) The red tape was daunting and mostly sticky!
I don’t believe that anything in life happens by accident. I was meant to see the article about how houses in Italy were on sale for the princely sum of 1 Euro. Yes, that’s right. For less than the price of a coffee, I could potentially own a house! In Europe.
The fine print, however, was less than encouraging. The houses were in the south of Italy. Earthquake country. They were falling apart in many ways. There are a lot of immigrants, crime levels are pretty high, the bureaucracy is inefficient, and by all accounts, it was not worth it to take that offer, unless you had lots of money to restore a house! Especially given the three-year time frame.
I am stubborn, though.
Auntie Google helped me find some reliable Italian property sites. Most of them were geared towards millionaires and the properties were on the Costa-Much-Too-Much, or in the big cities where I didn’t want to go, anyway.
And then I found Piedmonte, a lesser-known region of Italy, mostly surrounded by the Alps and with some really spectacular views and food! The slow-food movement originated there, and its wines are better than those from Tuscany in many ways if the foodies’ opinions can be relied upon. It isn’t too crowded, the crime levels outside of the big cities are low, the quality of life is extremely good, and the cost of living is reasonable if you don’t overextend yourself with debt.
So… the property search begins!
I first looked at the province of Torino, and the mountain properties. In my price range, there were a few possibilities, but the biggest problem that I saw was the matter of access. It was all good and well if I had a decent-sized building that wasn’t a heap of rubble, and some land around it, but if there were no access roads, the restoration process would be as near to impossible as one could get!
The province of Cuneo didn’t initially catch my eye. It was basically a province that one traveled through to get from the mountains to the sea and more small villages than towns.
And then COVID-19 happened!
And the world shut down!
I was at home. I was bored. I had to stay positive and busy… so I got to looking at places to go to, once I could again!
I found Ormea.
And some really cheap properties that need a lot of work, but not an unreasonable amount of it. And a quiet town, with mostly older people. It’s on a bus route, so not out in the boonies, and it even has a library. Not that I understand enough Italian to be able to join and read. Yet! Plus the recorded history of the area dates from way back when!
The house I found is on three levels and is literally 14 sq m larger than my current apartment. I am going to consider that area to be the stairwell, so not really a big step up. 😉 It was originally built in the 1700s, has no bathroom and no kitchen, and a dead pigeon on one of the bedroom floors. (Eeeeeuw, I know!) The roof needs serious attention and I suspect almost all of the rafters need to be replaced. It is North-East facing, so a cold little place (hopefully the summers will be hot, and I can be grateful!) and no “outside”, although I hope to be able to add a balcony on the top floor. If it was there before, I can simply just redo it. On top of that, it has – hold your breath! – cement plaster all over the stonework, so that has to removed post-haste and the stonework repointed with the correct mix of limestone mortar. At least that should take care of any damp issues, now or in the future.
It’s literally a stone’s throw from the piazza, which is the heart of every Italian town and one of the Catholic chapels is just around the corner, so I shall have no excuse not to go and Worship. No, I am not Catholic, but then God does have His own way of talking to people, despite the cloak that the message wears. I intend to invest in a motor scooter for the more distant errands, but I doubt that that will be necessary. I’ll see. (I’ll need to invest in riding lessons and a license too, so that definitely complicates things!)
I’ve learned a bit more than basic Italian in the time that I have had at my disposal, and have read up about restoration techniques and ways to retrofit houses to make them eco-friendlier. In a sense that old shell not having a bathroom or kitchen is a blessing, as that means I can install fittings and appliances that don’t use much electricity, if at all (thinking wood-burning cookstove that has an integrated water heater) and a solar/wind/grid power system. I don’t want to modernize too much, as I feel the character of the house will then be lost, but I am not above adding some creature comforts such as a wi-fi system and a bidet toilet seat. (No space for both fittings, so I needed to be creative!)
I don’t know if there are any resident ghosts on the property, but if there are, I hope they will approve of the electric lights and running water!
I am praying that this particular property will still be on the market by the time the world opens up again, as I fully intend to fly over and make a hard cash offer. Ironically, the legal and administrative fees involved will be almost three times the cost of the house – it’s that cheap! Let’s all hold thumbs.
