Long story short. The plan that made me move to Amsterdam didn’t work out and I had to explore what to do next. This means my wonderful time in Amsterdam ends a lot earlier than I had hoped. After exploring different options the most promising leads came through my existing network…but require relocation and leaving my beautiful place at Marnixstraat 311b.

I will miss the atmosphere and way of life of Amsterdam, the beautiful view and the morning sun entering the apartment. What I will not miss and would have liked to avoid are the issues that come from an unresponsive and private owner. His lack of empathy showed early when we kindly asked him to allow us to park our bicycles safely in the storage and were told to park it in our flat. The trajectory was set when being asked to pay a couple of days from the current month regardless if we would move in that day or just at the beginning of the next month. Many issues followed but I will spare you the details.

The climax is his attempt to keep the deposit and try to deny my right to terminate the tenancy agreement. Let’s see how this plays out, my hope in humanity dies last though. The lesson to learn is don’t rush moving from one country to another, if possible pay the deposit to a trustee and finally..

If you rent from a private owner try to get to know him and his reasons to rent one or more apartments. Did he inherit it? Did he live there but had to move? Is it a long term investment to one day move into it once tenants paid his credit? Or is it just about maximizing his profit? It will tell you a lot about how he will deal with a request.