milly_m

There are loads of cute dogs nearby! I could try walking my cats outside to fit in, but last time I put a leash on them one just crab walked everywhere and yowled, and the other flopped down on his belly and refused to move... I do however have a very snazzy yoga mat - I love yoga, although not the hot yoga that seems to be nearby. I'm also not the typical slender yoga type that seems to be most prominent!

Oh thanks for the suggestions! We haven't ventured too far in terms of shopping outside of the choices market, just the home sense and IGA up on Robson. Mind you we've been eating out most days! Now Mr Milly is back in work I can do some wandering and scoping out different places and trying to get back into a cooking routine.

Engineer_abroad

Yea don't use 'lack-of' choices most their products are organic or the like so are marked up pretty heavily. IGA is a better choice. You can also get home delivery from Save-on-foods and there is one across the Cambie bridge just up from the police HQ.

Siouxie

You know, I love how you are embracing all the experiences - and even the frustrations - without resorting to moaning or saying detrimental things about Canada / BC / Vancouver and the way things are sometimes (stupidly) done here.


Well done both of you - wishing you happiness in your adventures

milly_m

I mean, yes government bureaucracy is frustrating but that's not Canada specific! There is bound to be a bunch of boring paperwork to do when you move anywhere...

We submitted our MSP application today, and our health insurance through Mr Milly's work kicks in today as well. He's going to give them a ring tomorrow to check if they need a doctor's prescription for his diabetes stuff or whether he can just order from a pharmacy once he gets the card. They should cover 90% of his medication which is good as a couple of refills for his glucose meter cost $100!

scrubbedexpat091

And downtown is where I want to be...lol..

We are in East Van right now on E Hastings between Clark and Commercial and eh its not my cup of tea.

We are going to be looking to South Vancouver in the fall, so I can get a shorter commute, assuming we find something decent.

beckiwoo

milly_m

We've started our house (well apartment) hunting search properly this week - I went to view a place in the Cambie area yesterday which was quite nice. Seeing all the huge detached houses for blocks and blocks around the area was weird, I mean have they never heard of a terrace? It's crazy that all you get is detached homes or massive apartment blocks.

It feels like a lot of pressure to find somewhere to rent, like if somewhere is OK then you should probably apply to rent it as everywhere gets snapped up so fast! I'm not super fussy and the place was pretty nice so I submitted an application. It's through a lettings agency and the online application process was quite a mission! There was space to add a cover letter though which I did to explain our circumstances and I also uploaded a UK landlord reference and credit report. I'm not sure we'll get it anyway as it's available from 1st July and we don't really want it until after 26th July but it was good to go through the process. Apparently there's one month's notice for rentals in BC so a lot of new rentals should be coming up after the long weekend as notice gets given at the end of this month.

Next task, figure out what to do for Canada Day! I'd better get buying something red and white huh?

beckiwoo

scrubbedexpat091

It's a mix of industrial and residential depending on what street its on. We are just east of Clark and West of Commercial, Pender St W of McLean is industrial, but east of McLean is residential on one side and commercial/light industrial on the other.

Francis is similar.

It's an interesting area especially when leaving for work at 3:45am when the more colorful characters are out and about.

Property crime is a problem though, anything not bolted down will vanish, luckily we are not on ground floor, so its not too bad.

Downtown appeals to me mostly because I can walk almost everywhere, don't have to drive or fuss with crowded hot buses, pretty much everything I need is downtown.....

Engineer_abroad

If you like crowds head downtown to Canada place. If you don't head out to some of the areas around Vancouver. Port Moody always does a nice event at Rocky Point Park and there are 4 breweries in a row.


Best place to watch the fireworks is in north shore, at the end of the shipyards pier. Much less crowded than downtown. Seasbus runs late as well.

adele

In the Cambie Village area (Broadway to Kind Edward)? I live in the area - if you need any info just give me a shout :-)

scilly

Terrace = Town houses here

To understand why you are seeing what you say you saw, you have to understand a) how Canada and the US were populated, and b) how the cities developed.

First, both countries were initially populated by immigration on to the east coast by people form the UK and Europe. As migration increased, they built what they were used to .................. apartment buildings, the brownstones of New York or the occasional mansion. Poor people lived as they had in the old country ...... crammed together in buildings built close together. Gradually some became wealthier and moved away ............. building houses with land around them, even if it was only a small garden.

Then people began to move out to the west ............ land, lots of it, all vacant (to their eyes anyway). So everyone had room to build house or farms with lots of ground.

Second, the cities to the west developed as settlers moved across the country, gold and oil found, etc etc. Again, lots of land. Even Vancouver had lots of land back in the 1870s and 1880s ............. Vancouver as it exists now only dates back to 1886. Houses were built, close together but detached ........... in some cases there were only very narrow alleyways between them but being detached meant a lot to the people.

Gradually people moved out of the downtown, south across False Creek, getting a bit more room for gardens and developing the separate towns of Kitsilano, Kerrisdale, Point Grey, Marpole, etc. ....... all of which later merged with Vancouver during the 1920s

People who wanted larger houses arrived ....... big wigs in one or other of the rail companies, men who had found gold, etc ....... and they built the real and beautiful mansions in Shaughnessy.

Vancouver downtown was still largely separated from the Fraser River as late as the 1930s and 1940s. Mos of those so-called mansions on Cambie were not built until the 1950s or 1960s, and some much more recently. What has happened now is that the older smaller houses are being bought by developers, demolished and huge 3 storey 6 bedroom homes built because that. allegedly is what many immigrants want to buy .................. a big house is prestigious to certain nationalities.

There was a lot of aversion to town houses years ago .... the problem of shared walls, you know, neighbours being too close, etc. The first set of town houses went in on Cambie Street across from QE Park about 15 or so years ago. Now they are being built on all the major arteries ................it's the latest thing! But the rooms are tiny, and I'm not too sure about the construction which is very shoddy compared with even 20 years ago.

When you arrived, you drove over the Arthur Laing Bridge and then north up Granville Street and over the Granville Street Bridge. I know of at least 12 town house developments, some occupied some still in the process of being built, that you would have passed on the way.

We've lived here for almost 50 years, and there were a lot of the old houses still standing in the downtown peninsula then. There are still some of the old timers (1880s-1910) in the West End, and on the east side around Prior Street. Almost all of the high rises on the downtown peninsula have been built since the 1970s, and some of the early ones are being demolished and replaced by even higher buildings. There were some lovely Art Deco 3 or 4 storey apartment blocks along English Bay when we arrived.

You can see how Vancouver developed if you begin to understand the various types of houses ............ there was still land for development in the 1960s and1970s, and you can see whole blocks that were developed at the same time, all the houses of the same style. Drive east for example along Renfrew Street and you will blocks of what are called '70s specials .......... all built during the 1970, and largely bought at first by immigrants from Europe.

Move out from downtown if you want smaller apartment blocks ...... there are many 3 and 4 storey ones still existing. There are ones like that on Cambie Street outside the downtown core. Ones in parts of Marpole are renting for as low as $975/month ...... unbelievable, I know ........... although $1200-1400 is more common.

milly_m

Thank you for the interesting background! This is the bit that always confuses me:

Because surely 90% of people can't afford a detached home and will end up in a condo, apartment or single floor of a large building. In which case they are already sharing walls (and probably ceilings and/or floors) with other people! A lot of new builds in the UK are the same though, there are more townhouses which have three floors but tiny rooms. Semi detached or small terraces would seem to be a sensible middle ground, but I suppose with housing the way it is developers want as much bang for their buck as possible.

There do seem to be more lower-rise apartment blocks around Cambie village and West end areas which is where we've seen a few. We're hoping now to get somewhere in the west end - we saw a nice big apartment yesterday in a four story block that we like, and the area is great, just need to get confirmation that they will be OK with the two cats! Some places are 'pet friendly' but specify only one pet which doesn't make much sense for cats, they don't take up a lot of space or make a lot of noise. It's definitely not $975 though

scilly

It didn't make much sense to us, and we were actively involved in some discussions at the time ........ but it went along the lines of the responsibilities of sharing of walls in apartments and condos were set in city bylaws, town houses were "new", and "who would be responsible for repairing a shared wall".

That development I mentioned that was built on Cambie Street was built under a sort of special provision, and lo-and-behold, none of the occupants complained about noise, structure or anything. Hence new bylaw, and this proliferation of town houses being built all along the major arteries ............. many of which, I fear, will be replaced within 10-20 years. Many of the developments are replacing houses built in the last 20 years, but not because the houses were in bad shape, but because the owners were offered obscene amounts of money.

We have at least 10 of these developments being built within about 2 km of where we live, all are selling for around $2 million and up for each town house.

Until very recently, all buildings above 4 storeys had to be built of concrete, and that means all the high rise apartments and condos currently built are solid concrete. Hopefully, that also includes walls between units, but does not include interior walls within an individual unit. However, there is a "new" method of laminating wood, and a student housing complex out at UBC is 18 storeys high and built of wood.

The older 3 and 4 storey apartments were largely built in the 1930s to 1960s, and most are built of wood, but are much more strongly built than current wood buildings so sound proofing is better in them.

https://urbanyvr.com/ubc-tallest-wood-building-timber

I'm sure we'll see more around Vancouver!

milly_m

28th June - 3rd July
Over the long weekend we continued some apartment hunting as well as getting settled and exploring Vancouver. We didn't get the first place I viewed (someone applied an hour after viewing and was accepted immediately, things do move fast!) but I saw another that looks promising. There's a lot of to-ing and fro-ing around whether the strata will accept two cats though, and as before the application process is a pain in the bum. I'm holding off submitting the application as we have a couple of other viewings lined up, and it seems if we submit an application we are basically agreeing to the rental even before we see the full rental terms/conditions etc and might be liable to pay a month's rent if we withdraw, which seems a bit backwards (and dubious) to me. Anyway, we have a couple of viewings today and tomorrow so will make some final decisions then.

The Vancouver Jazz festival has been running the last week or so and we discovered a free outdoor stage a couple of minutes from our place which was cool, so we wandered down over the weekend to see some performers. We also hit Granville Island for the Canada day parade, the weather held up nicely but not too crazily hot like other areas of Canada... or the UK!

We also finally got our internet banking sorted so we can transfer money from our UK accounts over. It's instant and super easy within HSBC accounts, although the rate isn't quite as good as you could get with some transfer companies. However we were struggling to see how we could sign up to them as we don't have the required proof of ID/address etc. for our Canadian addresses yet, and needed the money more immediately.