Desert Domociles

When I arrived in Rabigh, the company put me up in a hotel. It's actually wasn't so bad. I was given a large room with two double beds. There was a mini fridge, air conditioning (this is everywhere in SA), a flat screen television, and even a little vanity, which I could use as a desk. There was even free breakfast in the mornings, an awful gym. Hey--an awful gym is better than no gym at all.

But as wonderful as it was, the Rabigh Tower Hotel, did have it's
drawbacks. For one, the maid service was lackluster--they would change towels only every week, and I had to ask the front desk for a fresh toll of toilet paper. The food menu although on the whole not terribly priced, contained items that were often unavailable, and other that would come but resemble nothing like the picture on the menu. There was also in-house laundry, but it cost twice that of any other laundromat in town.  It was a little pricey staying there, too. For whatever reason it cost some 100 riyals per night, up until twenty days, at which time it became 3,000 riyals, although any additional days spent at the hotel up to an entire month would incur no additional fees.

So, I made it my goal to find longer-term accommodation before the dreaded twenty day mark. I was advised that I should go through a "real estate agent", who would take me out and about, looking at different places until I found a suitable one. My colleagues advised me that I should not pay more than five hundred riyal for the service, so be wary--some will try to charge you double! Anyway, I ended up just taking a tip from a friends and picking up an apartment vacated by colleague. 

 In Canada, most houses are built by digging a hole, pouring a foundation, then constructing a frame from wooden planks, which which which will be covered with plywood, insulated, covered with drywall on the inside and some tougher material on the outside. Usually there will be some sort of slanted roof, which will be covered with shingles.

The Saudi method is much simpler. They start with semi-hollow clay blocks and put them together lego-fashion, until there is a building. The clay blocks are then covered with a thin layer of watery cement and then a thicker layer later. Then then whole thing is covered with bricks on the outside and tile on some of the inside. The cement walls are painted and there is no insulation. the ceilings are usually flat. There is certainly no lack of space here, so the apartments tend to be quite big, which is nice.

Anyway, before you get a lego home of your own, there are two essential questions you should ask yourself:

1) How big of a place do I want?

2) Should I get a furnished or unfurnished flat?

Depending on where you choose to live, a single bedroom apartment may cost just as much as a two or three bedroom apartment, or perhaps a little more. So, if you enjoy space, you can have study, and a media room, or whatever, even if there is just one of you. In Rabigh, you can find unfurnished three bedroom flats for 1,7000 riyal or less. Yes, you can get killer deals on unfurnished flats, but beware! Often times unfurnished means that there are no conditioners, hot water tanks, refrigerators or light fixtures. There is one other thing to consider when looking for a bigger place: some of them (in particular the newer, nicer ones) are only for families--the landlords often won't rent to bachelors.

My apartment is a bit on the pricier side, at 2,000 riyals per month. I'm happy with it for now, even though there is only one bedroom and there is no kitchen to speak of. The reasons being that it's is downtown, the bedroom is massive, it's furnished, and all utilities including internet and satellite TV are included.

Now, for most places you are expected to sign a lease for six months or a year. Sometimes you will get a bit of a deal if you sign for a longer term, and or if you pay several months in advance. Usually, the landlords will require that you pay several months in advance, anyway, and they may or may not ask for a damage deposit.

So there you have it, your guide to finding a desert domicile, in a nut shell. Mind you, many expat workers never have to worry about this stuff and merely, get whisked away to the mystical faerie lands of private compounds where they can enjoy private pools, soccer pitches and twenty foot high walls manned by men with machine guns.