How do you decide which shade of black to wear?

Flat hunting, or as Australians call it 'House hunting.' I have had more than one irate Australian breath heavily down the phone at me and tell me, in a quiet voice, that 'I think you'll find this is NOT a flat.' It is.

It's a delicate dance, this business. First there is the online application, which involves scouring Gumtree for potential dwellings and dwelling-mates. It's a difficult task, trying to find the gems amongst bovved entries such as 'exhausted guy needs room in cool flat ASAP!!' However, things can be whittled down pretty quickly, once you count out outer suburbs, share rooms, flats with cats, anything south of the river, ads which describe the house as 'damp but cosy' and people who use the wrong 'your' in the opening paragraph. There are also ads that will never be answered by anyone, like this one

Gumtree fail.

Once you've found one that looks suitable in a pinch, there is the delicate task of describing yourself as a potential share houser. Usually its a matter of sounding like you are employed but interesting, independent but part of a team, clean but not anal, enjoys an early night but is also the life of the party, intelligent but non judgemental. What ends up happening is that, in a desperate bit to stay neutral, you end up saying nothing about yourself.

"I Like my music, chilling out, sometimes up for a drink or a party, but saying that not a complete party animal. I'm a pretty easy going sort of person. I likes to sit down and have a cuppa and a chat, but also likes own space."

Sometimes your don't hear back, sometimes you do. And then begins the city hopping trek of meeting and greeting your prospective housemates. In this step, you sit on opposite couches, asking dull questions and laughing politely at each others jokes about the state of the front garden or the abstract painting over the fireplace. Occasionally you are offered a glass of wine but this a rare and privileged exception. Usually, the interviews are kept to a 15 minute maximum after which the next ad replier will be knocking at the front door. Sometimes, the house dwellers will take down notes on in an exercise book as you speak; sometimes they will ask you to leave the room while they discuss your living potential. Usually at this stage, I am sweating like a demon after a 20 minute bike ride and all the questions I want to ask have vanished into the ether. I am left with inane queries such as:

"So, like, what's the general vibe of your guys flat...I mean House?"
"Oh you know, its like, pretty chilled out. We like to hang out together sometimes but we also like our own space."
"Mmmm yeah that sounds great."

What you really need to is to cut the crap and ask the questions that you're actually curious about. Like:

"Are you one of those people who leaves their washing in the machine for days after its finished, because I fucking hate it when people do that."

OR "Would you be annoyed if I brought home a party of friends to listen to funk music at 3am or would you get amongst it?"

OR "Do you boil your mooncup in a pot on the stove?"

At one house, I was forced to sit on the veranda and read from a book of poems. The poems were written by the dizzy head flatmate who told me she inspired a song by the alternative band Beach House. At another house, I sat and talked to the creatures who lived there about their desire to have a 'gangsta party.' Their desire ran so deep, it seemed, that they had already spray painted neon gangsta graffiti over two walls of the kitchen. In one area, the paint had dribbled down and left a neon pool of yellow on the top of the stove. I smiled and went on with the questions, unable to tell them that I would rather fall down a flight of stairs than live in their spare room. As I left, I realised that the stool I had been sitting on was actually a broken, rusty TV.

But its all worth it in the end, all the dull interviews and the hectic bike rides and the flowery poetry. There's always another door to knock on.

And this is why I love Shallow Grave.