Moving From Los Angeles

[stargatefix]

is the furniture even more shitty than IKEA stuff? Because my last apartment was furnished with very expensive idea particle board lol.

 

[ElQueso]

Heh. I bought a used leather-covered sofa from a friend of mine who had to return to the US, who was so proud that he had had it custom-built for his height so he could lay down without his feet hanging over the edges (he's about 6'2"). It was only about a year old when I bought it, and it sure did look nice. He paid some 6000 pesos for it, which at the time was about $2000 USD. I bought it from him for 2000 pesos. We bought it in place - I took over his lease and he left that and a couple of other items we bought, to start our household, when he left. When we had to move about 10 months later, we were on the 5th floor and the sofa was too big to take down the stairs or in the elevator (and really, anything bigger than a love-seat-sized sofa wouldn't have fit either) so the movers had to lower it over the balcony and bring it down by rope. The pressure of the rope (two pressure points - they made a "cradle" with two supports about a third of the way in from each end) on one side broke the front board along the bottom - one of the load-bearing boards.

Of course, the movers completely denied they broke it - we didn't realize it had broken until they got it to our new house in the suburbs and I was watching them unload it. I always found it amazing that they denied that...but that's another story.

So we took it to a place to get fixed. When they took the leather off to see the damage, I couldn't believe what I saw. The framework of the sofa was made of 1 x 4 wood, the soft stuff they use here that's like pine. There was literally nothing bigger than this in the entire structure. A lot of the bracing were 1 x 2s!!! Granted, it was a bit longer than most full-sized sofas, but it shouldn't have been a problem if proper framing had been used. On top of that, they'd put a 5th leg, in the middle of the sofa's underside, to support the extra length. That foot was attach to a 1 x 4 piece running front to back that was laid face down, not even edge down, and had broken as well when the rope running on the underside had caught the leg and twisted the wood framing. Funny thing about that is most of the load-bearing weight actually runs along the front edge along the length of the sofa, not in the middle. Would have been a great place for the extra support leg. Where it was was useless.

We still have the sofa. We've had it repaired 4 times now, and just the other day it broke again. I'm trying to decide whether or not to throw it out. For $2000 the sofa should have lasted a long time. It's lasted about 7 years with various repair attempts.

Many things like that fall apart here. IKEA might be common furniture, "made for the masses", but I would take it over most things that Argentina has been producing since I've been here at least. That is, as long as it is actually IKEA and not one of the many pressboard copies they sell here, which are even worse than most custom-built furniture I've seen here.

On top of other furniture issues I've had, the cheap cabinetry that even some of the best apartments use here is terrible. I've never had so many problems with hinges pulling out of wood as I've had here and the way they often fix it is to put a little piece of 1/2 x 1 soft wood strip over the old holes, which screws up alignment and other things. Or recessed lighting falling out of ceilings because they just stuck the fixture into the sheetrock hung on the ceiling with nothing to hold it in when the sheetrock hole expands over time. Or like the regular fixture in my office that is held to the sheetrock ceiling by a wire looped around a thicker wire stretching across the hole for access, etc. Paint that falls off the walls because of how they prepare walls here. Or, in our last apartment where the consorcio had to cut a couple of rectangles of carpet out of the floor to break the concrete floor up and fix hot water heating pipes and replaced the carpet with something that didn't match (the owner worked in Switzerland in the Foreign Service and his mother had supervised the work) and he blamed us for it! Or one of the temporary apartments we had where the woman two floors above us had some kind of half-manual clothes washing machine that overflowed if she didn't watch it and twice I was sitting at the kitchen table working when all of the sudden water came pouring out of the light fixtures in a flood of water into the kitchen - once it happened in the middle of the night and we awoke to literally two inches of water in most of our apartment - it was a cold morning. So on and so forth.

And the funny thing is, I can deal with things like that - I'm not a perfectionist and I understand that people do things differently here because they're not really concerned with quality and making sure things work correctly. But it all comes together under severe frustration when you pay so much, nothing lasts, and the government causes even more heartache with their limitations of imports, currency controls, fighting "evil" businesses, etc. And not just for people like me who earn from the US and whose biggest problem is merely getting money here without being robbed blind. The Argentinos themselves are the hardest hit by pretty much everything I've mentioned, exacerbated by the economic conditions and lack of caring that exist.

 

[mikic007]

You get used to this stuff, I guess. But last year in Europe, visiting friends and family, I felt quite bad seeing half priced much better things in their homes. When water heater exploded throwing water everywhere till bedroom, I was just happy to be at home at that time. 4 years old...

Ikea is actually good, comparing to stuff here. Sad thing is, it was not always like this. I see old houses with everything more than 30 years old inside and I can just admire good materials and work. Some solutions are amazing, never saw before and work perfectly for decades.

Degradation of country is visible everywhere. If you are choosing new life somewhere and you don't have much limitations, I guess better look elsewhere. You can always come here for some months and enjoy nice things Argentina still offers. But don't tie yourself here, because you will be drowned in bad parts... Not everything is trivial as furniture is. Electricity shortcuts, insecurity, financial regulations, closed market, expensive goods and services (of lower quality), poverty.. Maybe sounds like adventure, but not when you are throwing food away, can't take shower, getting robbed, struck by inflation, and no one gives a single fu** what is happening

 

[Girino]

You get used to this stuff, I guess. But last year in Europe, visiting friends and family, I felt quite bad seeing half priced much better things in their homes.

That's exactly what I felt! Some 6 years ago I was home shopping to buy a place for life in my home country. We visited several shops to get an idea of how much a remodeling would cost - furniture, tiles, bathroom stuff, etc. Since we love cooking, and a kitchen lasts for life, we had cost estimates ranging from 10k to 20k for a full kitchen of good quality (nothing hi-end, just cabinets + appliances). Then for a number of reasons we opted for renting, and we rented a partially furnished place with a cheap kitchen (or so I thought back then, IKEA-like as far as quality, with a less stylish design).

When I think about it now, I feel like I am living in a camping, with an ugly white kitchen with 4 burners all so big... some dishes I always burn, I cannot slow cook on low heat, the oven has basically two temperatures: 0°C and 230°C, ecc.

And moving here, I gave up to a lot of little comfortable things I never paid attention to, little things that alone don't justify my frustration but that if summed up really wear me down. A couple of days ago I was really sad and blue and started to heavily question my move here. As you said, if you spend some months here, it is not so bad. But if you live here, stay here, and deal 365 days at year with this, it can become pretty frustrating very quickly.

I was ignorantly thinking that having more money than the average Argentinian I could replicate my standard of life I had in Europe, but the truth is, some things, money don't buy!

From the poor quality food (a flour good for nothing, a milk that is mostly water, dairy products that makes look McDonald's cheese like a gourmet thing, pasta that melts and unfold when cooked) to the poor standard of building, the poor hygienic standard for food (ever met pigeons in the supermarket elsewhere? and what about the number of stomach sickness you get here), it's all poor, poor, poor.

Really, I had better than this... I can afford better than this. Why am I here?! I don't think we will be here very long.

 

[alliek]

Hi Robyn! My husband and I are new here (Recoleta) and would love to chat about what you've learned so far about living in BA. We're not completely useless, lol, but would love any advice you have if you ever want to meet up with your bf. Let me know

 

[stargatefix]

Hi Robyn! My husband and I are new here (Recoleta) and would love to chat about what you've learned so far about living in BA. We're not completely useless, lol, but would love any advice you have if you ever want to meet up with your bf. Let me know

Well I have learned there are a lot of bitter people here hahaha

if you want hit me up in a private message you are totally welcome to. It would be nice to try and make friends out here.