briansutcliffe

I have arrived in Riyadh and despite ensuring that my employer understood I needed married accommodation in an expat compound I am stuck in a hotel and I see no prospect of finding decent accommodation. I am a long in the tooth British expat with 35 years overseas experience - so this doesn't worry me - I will just throw in the towel and move on to another job in another country. But before doing so I do want to make sure I have covered all the options for finding accommodation.

I need accommodation for myself and my wife (late/mid 50's) and I cannot see how we can survive other than in a compound. Cost is not a constraint, but I don't really want to be renting a 6 bed villa just for the two of us. Any ideas or should I get the next flight out ?

PS apart from the fact that I can find no where to live I think we would be quite happy in Riyadh (been in many worse places). So I am reluctant to give up at the first hurdle.

The Dean

There are others who hang around this neck of the woods who are still in the Magic Kingdom (I moved over to Bahrain a year ago), so their responses will be more up-to-date and accurate, but I fear you won't find anything in the near term.

A lot of new arrivals are put into hotels when they arrive, but that's usually (and genuinely) because "your villa isn't ready until the 1st of next month" or whatever. You seem to be saying your employers haven't made any arrangements at all, despite promising you that they would.

Have you actually challenged them on it? If they make excuses ("we have been looking around for somewhere for you, but nothing's available" etc), just walk out and head home - for the simple reason that it's a surefire indicator that they are bad employers who don't give a rat's about their staff, and they will surely let you down in other ways in the months to come.

And by the way................ people who have joined The Bored recently have proper names like "Beans-on-Toast Britain" - you can't expect to be taken seriously with a stupid handle like "briansutcliffe".....