You probably already know from reading my
blog that I don’t live in a new home, in fact I refer to it on many accounts as
a “dilapidated mansion”. This house is so old that it is heritage listed and very
slowly it is falling to the ground. I’m not allowed to walk on the far right
side of my balcony because the timber has rotted away to the point where you
can see down onto the street below. I can’t wear stilettos in my room without
the heels piercing through the floorboards and every switch and fixture is
outdated to the point where it is almost impossible to fix anything. The icing
on the cake occurred merely hours ago when myself and two other housemates were
sitting in the living room and Queen K was taking a shower upstairs. After a
few moments of Queen K turning the shower on water slowly started seeping from
the walls downstairs and before we even had the chance to react the pressure on
the old pipes had caused water to burst through the roof.
Frustrated that I couldn’t get ahold of our
landlord and tired that things like this kept happening I rang one of the few
people with the ability to talk some sense into me, my ex. I haven’t been with
my ex boyfriend for a long time yet every now and again i’ll call him up,
because for some reason I still value his no bullshit opinion.
He said to me: Paige, I don’t know how you
live in that shit hole, since the day you moved in its been falling apart. For
the amount of money you pay you could get a new, nicely furnished place a
little out from the city where shit like this wouldn’t continue to happen.
You’re only still living there because you have always had some weird little
obsession with that street. You said you’d one day live on Bourke Street and
you did it, so now you can get over it and find a good place that doesn’t look
like its going to fall to the ground at any moment. What about Randwick you
could get a nice place there.
Ouch.
In my defense, he lives in Randwick, in a new,
sterile fully furnished apartment with a sign above his front door that says, “lacking
any slither of imagination”. The idea of
living there makes me think I might as well move back home. But I admit it the
guy has a point. I do in fact start to lose my shit a little bit when it comes
to this street. Since the first time I visited Sydney and walked through Bourke
Street with its Edwardian style terrace houses, quaint cafes and the abundance
of trees which cascade over the street I’ve waned to live here. Bourke Street
was what inspired me to finish high school in Queensland and move to Brisbane
to get a degree. When my dad finally gave me permission to move interstate I
searched high and low to find a place to live on Bourke. One day I got a call
saying that my application for residency had been accepted and that for a price
I could rent a room in a very old house that was not necessarily located on the
nicest end but nonetheless was technically on Bourke Street. That was the day I
finally scored my little piece of Heaven.
Since then the original three people moved
out and were replaced by three magnificent Queens. For us girls all in our
early 20s this dilapidated mansion has become our unbreakable fort and a refuge
in the middle of a rough and highly unpredictable city.
But just because I've now lived here for over a year doesn’t mean I can just pack up and leave, in fact that is hardly the
point. My goal has always been to slowly move my way up the street until one
day I was financially blessed enough to buy a renovated home adjacent to the
little Bourke Street Bakery. Why would I leave now especially since this street
has inspired so many stories already?
The purpose of this blog is to hopefully
inspire you too, as well as to entertain you and give you a little idea of why
I love this little piece of the world so much. I don’t know how much longer the
Dirthouse will continue to stand up right but I do know that my burning desire
to own a property on this street will not deteriorate until I’m sitting on my full
functioning balcony writing about love and drinking tea.
