It took a while, a few weeks slogging on the internet and a week once we arrived, but we have found quite a cool place to live over here in Vancouver.
We’re located right on the beach overlooking English bay with a truly wonderful view. Perfect for the Olympic light shows and sunset is dead ahead!
We lucked out really, managing to rent a room from a very pleasant Canadian lady who has been great and charges us reasonable rates unlike the majority of responses we got to our internet advert. We posted something along the lines of ‘British couple seeking accommodation for February and March, no stupid Olympic prices!’ and received responses along the lines of…
‘Hi. I have a furnished downtown condo within walking distance of blah blah Olympic event’
My reply would always have been…how much? Then you’d get a mail back saying, and I’m not kidding in some cases here, $5000 per week! Yes, that was the exception, but the average price for a studio flat in Vancouver from the responders was in the region of $1000 per week. Bear in mind that a 2 bed flat in the best part of town comes in at around $2000 per month here and you see what ridiculous profiteering comes hand in hand with the Olympics. I wasn’t surprised to see lots of websites offering homeowners in Vancouver the chance to make money while they could…move out for the games and rent your place to rich tourists. I wonder who pays the money? Not me.
London will see people in Luton offering pokey ground floor hovels for extortionate prices with sales pitches like ‘only 40 minutes from the Olympic stadium’ and ‘near shops’.
We did, however, get some reasonable responses in our internet search for a place to live. One sounded great, under $500 per month, in a great neighbourhood not too far from town (considering the cost). The owner sent us an address and, just like I’d been doing for every property, I looked it up on google maps. This is where it was…
Great thing about google maps is that you can now zoom to street view and actually have a look at the place front on. Things still looked good when I did that…
But, something caught my eye on the image. There was a figure sitting in the porch (look again above), so I zoomed in and saw this…
We decided against it!
DAVE CHEESEMAN 
What the fuck is that??????