Job Discussion Forums

[The Menace]

Now that I�ve ascertained Mexico to be a safe place, ,my next question is;
Is it true that all teachers in Mexico live in huge villas and have servants and chauffeurs?
How would you describe your living accommodations and how much do you pay? If you don�t mind sharing..

When I went to China I was expecting the worst but was pleasantly surprised. They gave me a large two-bedroom apartment that had two bathrooms, was freshly painted, with beautifully tiled floors, front and back deck in a quiet treed neighborhood. Free� Some of the furniture and fixtures were a little sketchy but still pretty good. I had another experience in China but that really sucked so I won�t tell you about it.

[moonraven]

Menace,

You don't expect much, do you?

We don't have villas and chauffeurs. Or at least most of us don't. The nicest place I have had was in Cuautla, Morelos, in a gated community with a big swimming pool that we had to ourselves during the week because most of the houses there were only used on weekends by folks from Mexico City. Our place was a medium sized bungalow, furnished, surrounded by a really wonderful garden with roses and fruit trees. I had a cleaning woman once a week whom I arranged for separately. We were paying 1800 pesos a month plus lights and gas 5 years ago--and I would expect to pay 2500 to 3000 now. A similar place in Cuernavaca would run at least 5000 pesos a month. Most ESL teachers can't expect to receive a salary that would alow for that kind of lifestyle--when I was living in Cuautla I was directing a language institute and receiving a percentage of the tuition monies.

[The Menace]

I know, a safe and comfortable place to live is asking a lot, we Canadians are demanding that way.

But 3000 a month is't bad on a 15,000 teaching salary, Less than one week's wage, which has always been my gauge.

My tongue was in my cheek about the chauffeur but someone to clean my house once a week. Now that I like.

[MELEE]

Well, we just had to let the doorman go, turns out he was taking limes off our trees and his wife was selling them in the street. Of course we have more limes than we will ever eat, but its not right for him to be making money off our limes, is it?

[lozwich]

I can't bear having a cleaning woman!

I was brought up to be responsible for the messes I create, and the thought (and as I've just recently found out, the practice) of paying someone else to clean up after me is abhorrent to say the least. If I'm a filthy slob, then I should be the one who has to clean it up, not somebody else.

I'm also quite a tidy person, and very particular about where things belong, and the distress I feel at all my stuff being moved around, and in some cases thrown out has made me decide not to keep my muchacha.

I feel bad, because she could probably do with the money, but she'll have to get it working for someone else.

Lozwich.

[saraswati]

When I first arrived in Mexico, I swore I would never hire someone else to clean up after me. A couple of years later, while sharing a house with three other teachers and two babies, we decided that our sanity was more important and we hired a person to clean the house a couple of times a week.
Years later I still have someone come in and clean. I like having more free time to do something that actually interests me rather than something I absolutely detest. The women that I have employed have always been paid going rate or higher. Paying any less would be an insult.
Some people have had things "thrown out" or stolen. I have too - mostly clothes or toys. Ni modo. Keeping that in mind, it's a good idea that whomever you hire, if you choose to do so, is recommended to you and you know where that person lives.

[The Menace]

My comments about chauffeurs and servants were just an obviously poor attempt at humour.
What I was trying to get at was how you feel about your housing in Mexico.
On teachers wages are you able to live in fairly decent housing?
Generally speaking would you consider housing cheap, so so or expensive?
My niece lives in New York City makes a very good wage and has to live in a shoe box-shared

[moonraven]

The town where I am currently living has no decent housing. I would happily pay 2000 to 3000 pesos if acceptable digs were available, and have done so in the past without feeling pinched.

[delacosta]

There is very little decent housing where I live as welll. Well there is some but it's very pricey.
When I first moved into my house four years ago it was basically a concrete box on the side of a cliff. No water or electricity. But what a view I tell ya! Rent was free till it all got hooked up. So then it was a box with running water and some lightbulbs. And hot like an oven. The rent ws 700 pesos. Any improvements I made were taken out of the rent. In the first few months there I had already paid a years rent to make it livable. I t is now what I consider to be one of the coolest pads in the hood. Well actually a narco just built near me and I think it's a direct copy of Tony Montana's scarface villa. But you know those nouveaux riche narcos and their poor taste...
After three years the landlord put the rent up to 1,200 now that I'd brought the place up to market value. But still it'sa great deal as far as I'm concerned. I'm considering buying it actually.
As far as hired help I enjoy doing the housework, except for washing clothes, which I have sent out. I did have a cleaning lady but she was too chismosa, but that option is htere at a reasnable price. During the rainy season I find it necessary to get teh yard cleaned by a machete guy since it growns in so much and so fast (there are no lawns).

[MELEE]

Menace,

ummm, I hope you--and other readers, also realized that my reply was meant to be humor...

Now that I have a bit more time--IT’S FRIDAY!! I'll actually answer.

I've been in the same city for 6 years, and I've lived in five places!!!

The first apartment was nice, newish, two bedrooms with a giant living room, a comfortably sized kitchen and a rather large bathroom. Back then it cost me 900 a month, the landlady now rents it for 1800. It was sunny, breezy, and centrally located, very comfortable, and in good repair. I lived there two years. Why did I move?!?!

1) Because I moved in with my boyfriend, and it was easier to get a new place as a couple than explain. 2) I needed really needed to get a dog. I'm one of those people who find it difficult to live without a dog (and the landlady didn't want dogs). 3) The balcony was shared with another apartment, which was home to two little girls who would peer in my windows all the time, and if I left the balcony door open, they would come right in. And 4) the entrance of the building, was the entrance for the landlady, and three apartments--the problem with that being the landlady sat outside her door and greeted me when ever I came in or out, and I felt like the comings and goings of a foreigner were more interesting to her than a telenovela.

The next place was a small old house in the village on the other side of the university where I work. I got my dogs. It was ten minutes walk from work. I could walk my dogs at sunrise every morning and have my breath taken away by the beauty of the sunrise over the mountains. My then boyfriend (now husband) and I lived in relative peace (the only questions that were ask was when would we have a baby-nothing about if we were married or not). The place was old and in disrepair, but cute and homey. The roof was made out of corrugated asbestos panels . And had a few leaks. But nothing I couldn't live with.

Why did I move? The back of the house was built right up to the lot line, and then one day the neighbor--who had a huge piece of land--started to build right on the other side of the lot line. The first problem was that this blocked two of our windows. When it started raining, we discovered the second problem. The building the neighbor built was taller than our sloping roof. So when we got torrential downpours (that happens about 4 times a week in the rainy season) water pooled there until it backed up enough to reach the joint between two roof panels where it started flowing into the house--like a waterfall. The landlady's opinion was--its and old house and its not worth doing anything to. Needless to say we moved!

From there we moved into an apartment tucked into a building that had been a small soccer ball factory (about 10 people). It was "unfinished"--no tiles on the floors--but was roomy and had personality. It also had a really large enclosed area with a two-story wall, but no roof that was great for my two dogs. It was on the edge of town, the views weren't nearly as nice, but we could still go for our sunrise walks. I paid 1600, I lived there 6 months and an electric bill never came, so I never paid electricity. Why did I move?

One day the landlord came to see me. Actually, I think he sent his brother, I don't remember exactly. The man who sold him the building (the one who had the soccer ball factory) had come back to town. He wanted to start making soccer balls again. So, he wanted to rent back the building he had sold them. They told him a really high price, expecting he would turn it down. Well, he got back to them and said--fine! It wouldn't affect me they said. I could stay in the apartment; the factory would have the same working hours as I did, so they when I came home, everyone would be gone. And they wouldn't have the key to enter my apartment. I don't know how they thought ten people sewing soccer balls--with loud cutting machines--in what I considered my patio, wouldn't affect me, or my darling dogs!

After looking and looking for a suitable house for my four footed friends, I decided to take an apartment in the center of town--just around the corner from my first place! It was really more like a town house than an apartment. It was three stories and had three bedrooms, one and a half baths, a large living room, a small kitchen, lovely floors, a roof top terrace and two small patios, but no yard! It had huge windows with indirect natural light so it was light but not too hot and there was always a breeze. I paid 1800. By now my dogs were three years old so they were quite content to spend their days napping while I was at work. They learned to enjoy barking at passer-byers from the roof, and learned to take their morning walks on leashes. The building had one other apartment, which one of my co-workers lives in. The landlady lived down the street and wasn’t interested in my personal life. I missed the country, but enjoyed the conveniences of the town center again and I would have never moved, but…

As the usual forum suspects know, I got the opportunity to buy a house. So I did!
Now I pay 2500 a month—but in house payments not rent, my loan schedule has me set up to pay it off in 8 years, but my husband and I are hoping to pay it off in 5. It’s smaller than where we were living, but has a yard, and ITS MINE MINE MINE!! (Well it will be in a couple of years).

Sorry, this was too long for me to get into domestic help.

[The Menace]

I would have been happy with a taste and you gave us a whole buffet.
Thanks

[Ben Round de Bloc]

[The Menace]

Fruit trees, fish pool, pigeon loft and TWO chicken coops. Ooooie.

�I reckon you�re right Pearl, man be damn fool to leave all this.�

My wife wasn�t as impressed; she said she had to pluck feathers from bloody chickens at her grandmother�s farm as a kid.

�But honey you never had your own live-in muchacho� (that�s a feather plucker in Spanish, isn�t it?).

Sounds like cool digs Ben Round, thanks for the tour. Two chicken coops? Damn�

[Ben Round de Bloc]

Are ya makin' fun o' me and my chicken coops, Se�or Menace? Or are ya jus' kiddin' 'round with this here country boy? I figger yore jus' funnin', right?

Guess I'll be kind then and not tell you the really scary stories about how unsafe it is for foreigners in Mexico.

[moonraven]

Hey, Ben, don't be shy: tell him the really scary ones! (I think he's asked for them....)