There is a little-known fact about the rental market that I am going to spell out for you today, so listen closely. Every architect, interior designer and builder who knows their stuff will tell you that there’s one secret no tenant will ever find out.
Every Melbourne property will come with its own gnome.
Those funny, pointy-hat figurines you see in the supermarket? Those are fake. Cute garden decorations and nothing more. But I’m not talking about ceramic figurines.
I’m talking about real gnomes.
Ask any whiz in the residential property development sector and they will have run into at least one in their career. They live in the gardens, mischievous grins on their faces as they sprinkle their magic through a new home. Sometimes it’s something that works in your favour, like concocting the perfect colours in the sunset you see from your sea-view property.
Other times, you are looking at misplaced zoning law documents or a runaway left shoe (they love the left one; I have no idea why). I met this woman once, Catherine, who was building her first coastal home. She was the most well-researched homeowner I had ever seen.
She would liaise with her structural engineer, planning consultant, and contract administrator like a pro all by herself; she even talked to the construction companies based on the Mornington Peninsula. Mornington was the perfect suburb for her to settle down in, and she wasn’t going to waste a second not being part of every step of the process.
Catherine could not, however, fathom why every step of the process had a new hurdle to overcome. Construction equipment would malfunction mid-build. Consultants would lose their blueprints. She lost her car keys more than a few times on the property. The answer, that was so hidden from her, was that she had a real gnome problem.
The gnomes liked their sunny little seaside plot of land. The sun filled them with energy that they then channelled into causing chaos. Whilst they grew fond of Catherine, messing with her had become a ritual that filled their cheeky hearts with light.