Housing conundrum

[flashlight]

Hi all,

Let me try to keep this simple.
For 10 years, I have split my time between an apartment with an affordable rent in a major city and a house in the country. It's a juggle, in several ways, but it has offered me a balance I need, each place providing something the other cannot.
For the past year, the building in the city has been undergoing heavy renovations that have not been fun to live with (pervasive dust, constant noise, horrid environment, tough to work. They haven't gotten to my flat yet, but when they do, they will not provide any help nor storage space nor alternate housing, despite the flat being unlivable because totally blitzed. The works cannot be done without moving out stuff (no effing room!) and, in light of what has gone on in other flats, the workmen cannot be left without supervision.
I've just returned from the country, and discovered they have cut off the gas to the building without warning me. So I can't cook or even make a pot of tea. I can go out and get a hotplate and/or microwave, but with everything in the kitchen already on powerstrips (only 2 outlets), the electrical system could blow.
The "easy" answer is to say "heck with this", and just leave the apt and move full time to the country. But that has a host of immediate consequences (work, healthcare) and long term ones (re-entering this rental market later would be impossible). If I leave or have to leave, it's for good.
And that's scary. It does not feel safe.
In case that's not obvious, giving up the house is not at all on the radar.
I've not been able to see the forest for the trees nor to find a solution for me and my animals.
So, finally I turn to the Yi and it echoes my inner conflict loudly, without, in my eyes, showing me a path to solution, serenity and safety.

If any of you can see hints that elude me in the answers below, I am all ears! Do I want an easy answer? You bet. I don't have the yayas for yet another big struggle.

Please give me an image of my living situation in town the next 3 months : 3 unchanging
= difficult beginnings, but does not suggest things will be all done and ship shape at the end of those three months.
What is the best course of action for me to take to solve the apt problem? 12.5 > 35
=accept the problem, but work to improve things (but how?)
What is there to gain from sticking it out in the city? 39.3.5>2
= don't take unnecessary risks (such as?) and when I need it friends will help.
What is there to gain from leaving the city and being at the house full time? 39.5>15
=leads to modesty, aka avoid extremes (suggests living in country full time is an extreme?)
What is the advantage from living in two places? 39 uc
= hmm. doesn't sound like there is one. yeah, it's not easy, but it's given me what I need for a decade...

Twice the Yi says friends will come to help. Maybe posting this is part of the 39.5.
Thank you in advance for your thoughts :bows:

 

[Liselle]

Hi Flashlight,

What I most wondered as I read through this is, how far away is your country house from your city apartment and your job? Is it possible to live at your house and commute to work from there during the renovation? That seems (to a clueless outsider like me) to be the most obvious solution, but maybe you didn't mention it because it's not possible at all?

It sounds as if you have two problems here:

(1) where are you yourself going to live during all this, and
(2) what to do with the contents of your apartment during the renovation.

You didn't ask about the second item, as far as I can tell - maybe because you already have that figured out?

In case it might help people, including me, to try to make sense of this, here are the line texts so we have them in front of us. All are quoted from Hilary Barrett's book.

Please give me an image of my living situation in town the next 3 months : 3 unchanging

Oracle
"Sprouting.
From the source, creating success, constancy bears fruit.
Don't use this to have a direction to go,
Fruitful to establish feudal lords."

Image
"Clouds, thunder: Sprouting.
A noble one weaves warp and weft."

What is the best course of action for me to take to solve the apt problem? 12.5 > 35

12.5
"Resting when blocked.
Great person, good fortune.
It is lost, it is lost!
Tie it to the bushy mulberry tree.

What is there to gain from sticking it out in the city? 39.3.5>2

39.3
"Going on, limping; coming back, turnaround."

39.5
"Greatly limping; partners come."

What is there to gain from leaving the city and being at the house full time? 39.5>15
See above.

What is the advantage from living in two places? 39 uc

Oracle
"Limping. Fruitful in the southwest.
Not fruitful in the northeast.
Fruitful to see great people.
Constancy, good fortune."

Image
"Above the mountain, there is water: Limping.
A noble one turns himself around to renew his character."

A few notes:

• I've had hexagram 3 for problems which seemed intractable, but which worked out in the end (sometimes quite easily). Wilhelm calls hexagram 3 "Difficulty at the Beginning," and sometimes there seems to be an emphasis on "at the beginning."
• Hexagram 15 can mean more like "authenticity." People have said here on the forum that "modesty" in hex 15 isn't meant in the way we usually think of it, i.e. being humble or self-effacing.
• Someone once posted a reading here on the forum about a piece of writing they'd entered in a contest, and part of the reading was 12.5. I remember replying that even if their story didn't win the contest, maybe they could take the best elements from it and use them in a new story. I have no idea if that applies to your situation at all, but I thought it was a good example of 12.5.
• When the I Ching repeats things, as it repeated hexagram 39 three times in your series of readings, sometimes it's because we're missing a point it's trying to make.

I wonder if it's possible that 39.3.5 > 2, about staying in the city, could be interpreted like this: "No, don't do that (39.3), do something else instead (39.5); be open to all possibilities (hexagram 2)."

Then you asked about the opposite alternative, staying at your house, and got 39.5 by itself. Maybe Yi was saying, "Yes! This is the 39.5 part!"

You also mentioned that you just came from the country, and hex 39 can mean to make an imaginative turnaround on an impassable path. Maybe it's saying, "Turn around! Go back where you came from!"

Overall, I think the readings might be suggesting you stay at your house during this. But as I said in the beginning, I have no idea how far away that is. If your house is hours away from your job, then clearly that won't work and the readings are saying something altogether different.

Oh, another thing - since the oracle for hexagram 39 mentions southwest and northeast, by any chance are those the directions one place is from the other in real life? "Southwest" and "northeast" are metaphors in the I Ching ("southwest" is where you have allies, "northeast" is where you do not and must struggle alone), but when the real situation has a geographical component, as this one does, it's always possible Yi means it literally.

 

[flashlight]

Hi Lisa,

Thank you for your long message. I apologize for not citing the lines... didn't want to go too long and I often get the impression many here know them inside and out - at least those who give generously of their knowledge to help newbies!

To answer your questions:
-yes, the house is way too far away to commute, sigh
- the house is southeast from the apartment
- nope, haven't solved what do to with the contents of the flat or how

It's surprising, your sense of 39 to 2 and 39 to 15 is nearly the reverse of what I thought. I like your rendition better

Of course I'd love to turn right around and go back to the house. The environment at the flat isn't cheerful or healthy - even the cat's spirits are low because with the scafolding outside, there is no light (and he doesn't like having workers right there either!)

I hear the works are to start on the 27th. No other info, they really don't care how people are affected, it is not their problem.

Got a microwave, now just need to learn jow to make (healthy?) Zapped food. There is humor in here somewhere...

 

[Liselle]

Oh dear. I'm sorry. What on earth is wrong with them (the apartment people)? I've heard of situations where either apartments get renovated as people move out and the units become vacant, or else, if they really want the entire building done at once, they put people up in hotels - and not for three months. How in the world could it take three months to renovate one small apartment??? Entire houses get built from scratch in less time than that. (I think.)

You got 39.5 not once, but twice, so there has to be a "partner" somewhere, somehow. I thought maybe the partner was your country house, but apparently not. Could the partners in the line refer to friends, co-workers, even a casual, cat-friendly acquaintance who you could stay with during this? Could you arrange a swap with a neighbor or neighbors whose apartment won't be worked on until after yours - you stay with them now, and they could stay with you later during their renovation? Something like that?

Any chance your job would allow you to work from your house at all during all this? Or is it not a job that's conducive to telecommuting?

Is it possible to move your belongings to your house, and solve at least that problem that way?

 

[Liselle]

Er...one other far-fetched notion - any chance you could rent out your house to someone on a short-term basis, and use the money from that to pay for other city accommodations for yourself? You'd lose access to your house during that time, but if someone needs a short-term rental in the area of your house, it would at least give you money to work with.

 

[anemos]

have you talked with the others living in the same building. The themes of find helpers is everywhere in your reading (Hex 3 and 39 ... ) and 12.5>35 could mean there there are available resources you can utilize

 

[flashlight]

Aww, you two are sweet to respond and try to find solutions!

I see I need to give a bit more detail as to why I asked the yi about the next 3 months.
In fact, the building works started nearly a year ago. They estimated it would take 18 months. I laughed, and figured easily double. Sadly, I'm being proven right. This is a HUGE project, inside and out, and involves all the building's systems. They seem to think they can turn a 100 year old uninsultated building into an energy neutral one, or at least that's the grand plan. We all have been living in what looks like a war zone, which is what an inhabited construction site is. I work at home, and with jackhammers 10 hours a day, it's not been a cake walk. Every one is sick from the multiple types of dust and microparticles.

There has already been work in my flat. Just installing a new water column for example took a week between clearing the space, protecting from dust as much as possible, the work, clean up and reinstall. And when I refer to the 3 months, it's the heavy duty stuff, in two phases, and *if* they are on schedule. It's impossible, for example, to cut off the water to the whole building, rip out the system and put in a new one while people are living here. So it's bit by bit with lots of intermediary steps and pseudo solutions. It would have been smart & nice to move everyone (over 100 people) do the building, move us back in a year later. But impossible. So there you have it, in a nutshell.

We have formed a tenants' association - largely because of the shoddy work done inside the flats and to monitor rent hikes. But there is little one can do for one another (like co-house), the flats are small as it is, save share cheer and war stories (which helps).

I do have a friend across town, who is away until the end of the month, who might be willing to take my animals for a little while, but not months.

It's because all this is too much/too long/too everything that I was, in a nutshell, asking the Yi, should I bag this and exit stage left, but then what (in terms of being able to re-enter this housing market). Wondering if all the hassle and horrid living environment are worth it. And I can't be at the house while the works take place because my stuff will have to stay in the flat - between that and how they work, supervision is a must. Wouldn't it be nice to have a magic wand?

Renting out my house is not on the radar. It's in the boonies (or nearly so) and I wouldn't want anyone in there anyway.

 

[Liselle]

Flashlight, thank you for all the extra information. The scope of this is much bigger than what I thought. What a nightmare.

Am still confused, though - if you work from home, why can't you work from your country house? I mean, I realize you've said you can't; I just don't understand why you can work at home in one place but not the other.

 

[pocossin]

Please give me an image of my living situation in town the next 3 months.
3 unchanging

I think you should consider moving to the country. As I understand your health situation, your time is short. You should simplify your life now. Don't try to hold onto everything. Of course, if you absolutely need to work and healthcare will be difficult to access in the country, them you cannot move out of the city. My judgment is based on the visual of hexagram 3, the carriage of an official. This carriage (or wagon) is mentioned in lines 2, 4, and 6. Wagon suggests the movement of property.

I've just returned from the country, and discovered they have cut off the gas to the building

If the building is heated by gas, won't they have to turn the gas back on before cold weather? Also, you wanted to travel. You may not be in the apartment to protect your property when work on it begins.

 

[flashlight]

I can work at the house (and do - I'm not on vacation, wish I might, half the year!)
But I do have to be in town part of the year (clients, or else no work and no work when I am at the house), healthcare (another story) and because I refuse to let them work in my flat (where all my stuff is) without supervision. Poor works and damage to personal belongings (not to mention some instances of things disappearing) are indeed a huge problem.
I haven't figured out a way to clone myself, which would solve everything in one fell swoop!

@Pocossin
No, they have eliminated gas delivery to the building, full stop.
Wagon for movement of property - well, no wagon, but I am going to have to move everything from one part of the flat to the other part of the flat (and back, reverse, for phase two), so that fits.
I'd love to live in the country. But the health bit (oh please don't say my time is short, that scares me, and I am hanging in there!) does require the city at times. As does work. And should the day come (whenever...) it is physically impossible for me to keep living even half time at the house, then back to the city would be a must. If I let go of my rental, re-entering the market will be impossible (market rents are 3 to 4 times what I pay).

 

[anemos]

At least we can give an interpretation for your h3 casting..chaos

Maybe I'm wrong, but it appears to me that those reading are about two different problems . #1 what to do with the apartment in general (keep it or leave)
#2 what to do during the maintenance

Hex 3 could be the obvious or that after a while you will get used to the condition

39 un for the home seems that it's a place that you can relax concentrate, a warm place to be.

not sure about the practical issues of living there fo 3+ months. Work seems not to be a problem as you work home?

Maybe all of you can rent a storage to keep precious belonging and leave the rest at the flat or lease a place and live there in turn, depending whose flat is fixed.

39 solution have that feeling of change direction, yet the goal does not change, only you try to find a path with less resistance. ..

And still have that feeling that 39 can be a collective solution, and the friends could be all of you share the same problems.

Cross posts

 

[pocossin]

oh please don't say my time is short, that scares me, and I am hanging in there!

If it sounds brutal, then I apologize. I sometimes say the wrong thing, but I was trying to be truthful. I think you will have to make some hard decisions. I have already made mine.

If I may, one point on which I am very curious is your handle "flashlight". I thought it was an Americanism and that the British said "torch". A flashlight was so named because, when first made, batteries were so poor that the user got only a flash of light. This may seem trivial, but in divining I put great weight on connotation.

 

[anemos]

If you could clone your self, what self-1 would do and what self-2 ?
The question is not a joke...Im serious

 

[Liselle]

At the risk of ...

Could you treat your apartment like it's a hotel room? In other words - live at your house as much as you possibly can, move as many of your belongings to your house as you can, and when you absolutely MUST be in the city, live out of suitcases when you're there?

If most of your things were out of the apartment, it might require a lot less supervision.

If you spent as little time at the apartment as you can possibly get away with, what is the bare minimum you could get away with keeping there? Maybe very little of your regular furniture, maybe even just a cot? A mattress on the floor? Some plastic forks and spoons and paper plates? This won't be forever, after all. It might SEEM like forever, but it won't be. On the other hand, it does seem like it will go on long enough for all this moving of stuff to be worth it, to escape the mayhem.

 

[flashlight]

@Pocossin
But I am neither Brit nor Yank
But I did choose Flashlight for this forum because for me, consulting the Yi is supposed to shed light

In terms of hard decisions, and I am serious, not facetious, here -- living is a series of hard decisions... On some issues, choosing is easy for me, on others, a real bear.

 

[flashlight]

@anemos
Why do I get a picture in my mind's eye of rivalrous identical twins??? (not kidding either).
self 1 would deal with the "crap" - the flat, health and work
self 2 would deal with the "creative" - the house, the garden, writing
Stuff is out of balance: way too much energy (if not time) spent on "crap" (responsibilities?) and not enough on the creative.

 

[flashlight]

@lisa
a full explanation would be too long!!!
But this story might help you grasp why one needs to be around when they work on the flat or neighboring ones. Already in June, all of a sudden, there is a flood in my entrance. The workmen were in the flat above and drilled through the flooring and into my water pipe. STuff like this has happened all over the building time and again....

 

[Liselle]

Well...if they cause a flood or other such structural damage to your apartment, surely they are responsible for it, not you?

I mean, if you could move everything you care about out of your apartment, and then spend as little time in it as you can possibly get away with, living out of suitcases when you're there, then it seems to me you wouldn't have to care very much what they do to it. When they are eventually finished with all this, you'll get a refurbished apartment back, right?

 

[flashlight]

Nope, we are not getting fully refurbished apartments. THAT is a huge part of the problem - they are not going to repaint or replace flooring, for example, no matter how old they may be. Thus, the less damage they do while working (which requires presence) the better for each tenant. With the little work they've done in my flat so far, they managed to rip off a chunk of wall paper. Their solution? oh, just a slab of paint where it ripped. Seriously. You get the pix. It's because of things like that we set up the tenants association, to gather to get them to take responsibility.
Whether they are responsible for damages to my belongings or not, fact is not everything can be so easily replaced. Think humongous book collection, family momentos, papers and files up the ying yang.
I already have moved a lot to the house, take a lot back and forth, but the rest I need here, period. And yeah, I could never fit in the house all that's here, it's small but packed. (Worth noting, the house is fairly isolated, and much more at risk of burglars than the flat.)
The only one's who were able to do what you suggest are twenty-somethings who have very little stuff, work out of the house, and zilch responsibilities and were here temporarily anyway.

Change of pace - gotta get ready for a concert (while I still have access to my wardrobe, LOL!). Thanks for the support folks (and if any want to toddle over with a wheel barrow and a broom, you are welcome!!!)

 

[anemos]

Someone wants to go to the house

Can you arrange your health and professional appointments around the middle of week and have long weekends so you can make happy self--2 and self-1 also can have a quite place to work too ?.... plus a happy cat.

As for the flat, moving out till they fix it, or what Lisa said, just keep the essentials could be a solution.

 

[Liselle]

Well, this does all sound as if you have no viable options. It seems like owning a whole other residence really ought to help when you are having a housing conundrum! But it's too far away, you can't move anything more there beyond what you've already moved, and so forth.

I don't know what the readings mean, or what good it even did to ask the questions. Unless something will present itself which you don't know about yet, but that seems like a hex 4 thing, and hex 4 wasn't one of the answers. You just got hex 39 over and over again, which seems to have told you nothing useful.

Any chance of you all banding together even more than you've already done, and looking more into your legal protections, and/or even suing these people? They may have the right to renovate their building, but do they have the right to do so without consideration or compensation for the people who live there? It seems like there should be some protection against leaving you worse off after a "renovation" than before it, i.e. if they damage your floors and walls and then refuse to fix them properly.

I don't see lawsuits or legal maneuverings in the reading, but I could be missing something.

 

[anemos]

It feels, like a dead-end but 12.5 points that a solution can be found.

Lisa, curious if you say that because of 12.5, because a kind of insurance is what this line brings in mind.

 

[flashlight]

It's ** really** late here, just came in, checked emails and saw your messages. Thank you all so much....

That's how I feel, Lisa, like I have no viable options. Which is why, in my questions to the Yi, I was looking for some clear signals - like letting go of the city is a REALLY bad option or moving full time to the house is a really BIG risk or a REALLY TERRIFIC thing to do, no second thoughts to have -- something, you catch my drift. I did not sense something like that, and from others' responses, I don't think any of you got that either.

I have already used legal arguments as leverage in this situation (you've not had all the chapters, blow by blow!) and I fully intend to combine legal and insurance if the works do any damage at all. But, realistically speaking, any proceeding would lead to a process lasting several years with an unlikely outcome. It does put pressure on them, though, and that is indeed useful. The head of the building works was none too thrilled to see me back, he knows I'm fair but I'm a stickler for doing things right and properly. There's a bit of mutual respect in there somewhere (his position is not fun either, he's stuck in the middle). The landlord is pointless and is the institution ultimately responsible. I document everything. I'd love to avoid another proceeding (heck, I'm just out of a 2.5 year horrid divorce, and need a break from that crap, the nastiness, lawyer bills and paperwork!)

Since I'm just back, haven't met up with the other members of the tenants association yet. Should cross paths with them later this week I should think.

meanwhile...
off to bed!

 

[Liselle]

Lisa, curious if you say that because of 12.5

No, not really. I said it just because of what Flashlight has said, that she can't find a decent solution, and none of the options we thought of (as ill-informed outsiders) will work.

I don't (or didn't) think the readings say this is hopeless. But Flashlight has been trying to deal with this for a year now without success, and we have all tried to come up with ideas here in the thread without success. It's all fine and well for the I Ching to say there's a solution, but Flashlight needs to know what that solution is, or somehow be pointed in the right direction.

As I (sort of) mentioned before, though, it is always possible for further developments to make things more clear. Something could happen tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. Maybe when Flashlight sees her fellow tenants later this week, as she said she would, something will come of it. If so, it would certainly seem to fit with 39.5. If the tenants' association is able to do something soon that actually has an effect on the owner and causes some real improvements, then we'll see 39.5 as the perfect answer: "Partners come."

 

[anemos]

Thanks, Lisa. I see the overall casting in a similar way.

Flashlight, thinking about your 39 again and that you try to deal it alone. Maybe initiate a meeting with the tenants commite, and see if while you were away they have any progress on that matter, could save you some distress. It's such a complicate situation and hard to understand how a landlord decides for a renovation and tenants are responsible for damages or supervise the workers. If you empty the flat and keep safe your stuff the "flat" problem becomes smaller. Maybe it's a simplistic view, but some problems you try to find a solution, maybe it's not yours.

Hope you and others find a solution,
Best of luck

 

[flashlight]

Good morning,
The concert was great, it was wonderful to have a break from all this "stuff".
When I got up, I decided to ask the Yi the killer question: "how will my apt be after the renovations?" (I've two main concerns - living through the process, which looms like an impossible pollution filled mountain, and what things will be like when it is finally over).
I don't like the Yi's answer at all: 21.3 to 30
"Biting into dried meat, coming on poison.
Small shame, not a mistake."

Hilary commented on a thread asking a why 21.3 question:
"Because what those involved (could be you, of course) would have to get through to make it happen is really old and tough. And not only that, but if they persist in tackling it, they 'come on poison' - some unexpected nastiness that's been festering away here. At this point they might have clear insight into what's wrong, but lack the means to put it right."

Goodness, that seems to fit, doesn't it, and echoes what I fear about these works.

Off to shower and see who I can rustle up in the tenants committee to learn what's been going on the past few months....

 

[Liselle]

21.3 seems to raise more questions than it answers, doesn't it? What is the nature of the "poison," first of all. Are they really going to uncover problems with the building that they didn't know they had, which they can't fix? That happens when mechanics work on cars, it could certainly happen with 100-year-old buildings (although it has been a year already - isn't it a bit late for major surprises?). And what would happen then, to you?

It's probably premature to speculate very much...but what is Yi doing? It repeated 39.5 to you more than once, which is quite an optimistic reading: "Partners come" - but then it jumps ahead and says the end result will be some bad 21.3 thing? What??

It seems to be answering very strangely. If these were my readings, I'd feel like it was flitting around like a mosquito, refusing to let itself be caught. Harumph.

The scope of your 21.3 > 30 question was pretty narrow: How will the apartment be after the renovations? You weren't asking whether you'd still be living there, what might happen in the meantime (legally or in other ways, with you personally, to the building and its owners) and so forth.

Maybe the only thing to do right now is see what happens in the next bit of time that might pertain to the 39.5 reading, and then worry about what 21.3 is referring to? I don't know .

 

[Liselle]

Oh, wait a minute...of course, the instant I post I think of something else (and possibly better) .

Maybe 21.3 > 30 is Yi telling you to just stop chewing on this for now. Maybe it's one of those readings which isn't addressing the actual question at all, but instead is just giving you some advice: stop chewing. Wait for clarity (or, you don't have clarity yet, or you need clarity, or something - the background is clarity or lack of it).

The reading concludes with the omen "Small shame, not a mistake." That is is a lot different and better than ending with "pitfall" or something. So now I really doubt that Yi is telling you that this construction project will end in a disaster for you. Either it's just telling you to stop doing readings until you know what the 39.5 is about, or - if it really is talking about the apartment - somehow it will be "small shame, not a mistake." That is, not an utter catastrophe for you.

Does that make sense to anyone else? I feel like I'm turning in ridiculous circles.

 

[pocossin]

I feel like I'm turning in ridiculous circles.

I liked your suggestion that flashlight treat her apartment as a hotel room. I would like for her to minimize her dependence on the apartment no matter what a great bargin it is. I wonder if it could be sublet until construction is finished.

 

[Liselle]

Well, yes, it is a bit surreal that owning an entire separate residence isn't solving this problem for Flashlight. But she has said that her house is too far away to commute to the city when she needs to be there, plus, the house isn't large enough to contain everything that is in her apartment, and so she can't empty the apartment into the house and free herself from a lot of the worry about what the workers are doing in there.

IOW she has said she has no choice but to continue living there significant amounts of time, so subletting it seems completely out of the question.