VINGT Paris

Flying the nest and arriving in Paris

Bonapart client from Alberta, Canada, Heather Cutknife and her mom Alison posing in her new Paris apartment - a view of the Tour Eiffel no less.

It is a very busy time of year for me, August is never a month to relax at Bonapart. We have a significant younger clientele as originally the company worked to assist those from overseas arrange their accomodation in Paris in advance of their arrival. This was mainly because when I moved here, it was such a hassle I couldn't believe the service didn't exist - eh voila, Bonapart was born. Later we expanded to assist buyers purchase property but I must admit I love this time of year working with young people arriving in paris for the first time to embark on their first adventures.

We've developed a package to assist young people to get up and running with the minimum of hassle and get on with the important business of starting their new jobs or courses without wasting time and energy. As we have worked in conjunction with schools admissions offices for many years we have clients each year from Parson's School of Design (a personal fave of mine), the American University and the numerous MBA schools.

This means that August and La Rentrée for us means helping new arrivals choose a great apartment (often those we have assisted owners in purchasing - so of course they are great!) but as well as this there are many other things to consider..........

Helping select an apartment before they arrive is just one thing, support on getting to it from the airport, connecting to the internet, purchasing a mobile phone (and learning how to pick up messages, yes, surprise surprise the automated voice speaks French!) all takes careful explanation - not always easy to absorb after sleepily arriving direct from a transatlantic flight.

To save time, we now put together a bag of goodies for new arrivals: a mobile phone, "Plan de Paris" (city map) and a Carte Orange for the metro (monthly travel card).

More boringly but essentially we also organise the obligatory tenant's "multirisque" insurance. Without a bank account (hey we also set this up on the first day - not bad going if you know the usual delays here in France for this........), no means to pay by local cheque (not everyone accepts credit cards here, strange but true), speaking not a word of French and not really understanding the why's and wherefores of the law, I can only guess at how horrible this is to deal with alone.

Many students arrive with family in tow hoping to take a holiday at the same time. Sadly they often spend the precious time anxiously racing through Paris on the metro trying to track down their child's accomodation and feeling worried because they don't really know the layout of the city and the areas to avoid (there are a few....) or how the transport to school or work will be. It's no fun and usually in October we have Les Miserables coming to us to move from the apartment they'd booked up for a year after realising it wasn't at all convenient or reasonably priced.

All can be taken care of in advance of arrival (including financial logistics which can be a little longwinded involving international bank transfers and the like). Therefore during the vist the family can enjoy shopping for knick knacks to make the apartment homely, accompany the kids to buy essential supplies, do some sightseeing and relax in the knowledge that their son or daughter is safe and about to have a really great stay in Paris.

Note for apartment owners: Students are great tenants. Just take a good deposit, two month's is the norm, and touch wood, we've never had any Led Zeppelin style antics from any of them. In fact they've been model tenants and this is why so many owners who have apartments on our database come back to us year after year.

ISP Insanity

Most of our apartments that are available for rental have internet included and rolled into the rental price (come on you guys, it's essential). Mind you when I first came to Paris it was common that apartment owners insisted tenants take out contracts themselves and didn't understand that installing a conection gave them a better product, competitive advantage and they could even increase their rent a bit. Owners who won't toe my party line and install internet these days are dropped from our database, okay, unless their apartment is really hot stuff. It's a super big pain for people without bank accounts to jump through the administrative hoops to get a contract and even worse when they leave Paris and want to get out of it!

An 8 hour torture session last week was the final straw. I was doing a favour for a rather older gentleman and checking in the Bonapart client to his apartment without him being there, he was in Brittanny on holiday. Okay, no worries, I can do the walk thru, inventory and contracts for you...........and the internet connection.........it should be fine, what are the passwords? Okay then.........

It's now finito. I won't deal with internet connections with Wanadoo without danger money. 8 hours later I gave up. I couldn't leave my client sans wifi so we tapped her into an unsecured wireless network in the building.

Can you believe that dealing with internet companies (also but to a lesser extent banks and the electricity company EDF) takes one person a full time job at the moment at Bonapart? I can't afford to bore you with the details but I could just say that ALL the ISPs here in France suck BIGTIME. If I added up the time we've waited on hold for their customer "service" to answer calls I could probably add two years onto my life.

We've often waited for installation visits for two weeks and then found the technician went to the wrong door didn't call us on the cellphone provided and jumped back in his stupid little van and drove off to have a cigarette somewhere or meet his Mistress. Okay, we can wait another two weeks for the re-scheduled visit, no problem, it's not essential or anything................

One of the worst times (okay, Mercury was in retrograde) was having the internet in my office cut off after taking a holiday for a week. Just because when the company, Noos, sees that a connection is not in use they just cut it to save themselves power - I have quite enough anecdotal evidence from others to back up this wild conspiracy theory. No worries, it only took a week to be turned back on and about 8 hours on the phone - a mere 120 euros in phonecalls as of course "helpline" phone numbers are at a premium rate.

When I insulted a member of staff, threatened to call the newspapers and stage a one-woman protest involving vandalising their Bercy office with buckets of white paint, I was finally put thru to a manager and on the 5th day service was returned to normal, 15 minutes after speaking to him - I still remember his name, Laurent Denim. CONNARDS!

I haven't tried Alice but as another entrpreneur told me some horror connection and downtime stories so I won't bother. Neuf have competitive pricing but I am having trouble with them as they won't cut a contract and want to charge 400 euros for a modem sent out in error. Wanadoo, well they're in my opinion the absolute worst. Expensive, badly designed and the crappiest customer "service" I have ever encountered.

Imagine a Kafkafian nightmare, a maze you will never escape from with your mental health intact. Each time finding another operator saying, "Well, what about trying to lift the modem up and enter the 33 numbers on the base with the barcode, that should do it". "No? okay, re-boot the computer and try the sixteen leter password from part two of the guidebook again". Or the best one "Is your husband there, maybe I can speak to him".

I have found something which might preserve my sanity. Ozone is a sort of mast that the company stick on top of your apartment roof and it's free. So you have a free internet connection forever. Apparently it's owned by some very senior politicians and it's basically a spying or phone tapping system but at this stage I couldn't care less about my political principles.

All one needs to do is gain permission from the Syndic (the "management" groups who run the apartment buildings in Paris) to have the mast put up. "Uh oh" I said but I got the answer. Simply send them a registered letter telling them you intend to do this and give them a certain period to object.

This is the master stroke. 99% of the Syndics I know never get off their butts to do anything, return a call or email, send an electrician, pick up a phone or send required documents so of course, they never bother to reply. One case of their inefficiency working out for a change. They have to go to court to stop you from doing it and they will lose apparently, so they never do.

The lazy day's of summer.....

It's absolutely dead in paris this weekend (but I love it), August is a great month to be here and I have too much work to think about going on holiday until Christmas. Tuesday's bank holiday (Assumption) means that 99% of those who hadn't already decamped for the entire month made a break for the coast or country and it was eerily silent on Friday at about 7pm, even my 7-11 grocery was closed and I ended up shopping at La Grande Epicerie (my 7-11 when feeling rich). It was especially deserted instead of stuffed to the gills with the well-heeled denizen's of the 6eme stocking up for a Friday's diner à deux.

I was unsurprised to read that Parisians work the least amount of hours per year compared to other city dwellers. Apart from the ample public holidays, just catching someone at their desk here is a challenge.

You either call at 9.30am and the person is not in until "after 10", and I typically move onto another job and forget to ring back antil it's ten minutes to midday........Can I catch them before lunch?

"Sorry, they've just left for lunch , try again after 2pm Madame".........Forget again and see it's 5.15pm and of course, no point even calling, everyone has gone home.

What about leaving a message? After naively doing this for about a year after coming here I don't even bother now. If I can force the receptionist, assistant or co-worker (yes, force) to even take my name and number, the chances that the person will act on this are less than zero. I've no idea if it's because it's not been passed on or the person can't be bothered. I just don't even waste time leaving my number anymore, believe it or not it's simpler to do the "between breaks jive".