Columnist Eleonore af Schaumburg-Lippe writes in her weekly column about life as an expat in Romania. This week she tells her story about finding an apartment in Bucharest.

Those to whom accommodation in Bucharest is allocated by a company or organization are the lucky one, usually they find an apartment or house waiting for them, so they can just get on with settling down.

When I moved to Bucharest, I was not in that situation, so, with the help of an agent, I had to look for an apartment. I would definitely recommend getting an agent, there are enough terrifying stories about people having bought an apartment without an agent, just to find out the landlord had sold the apartment to two families or rented out an apartment that was not even their property.

I had one “demand” for the apartment; I wanted something nice to look at out of the windows, believing that seeing nothing but grey blocks all day would be pretty uninspiring.

The first apartment I was shown was in Central Bucharest, near the Italian Church. When I entered the apartment I took the curtains away to see the view from the windows, expecting to see the beautiful church, what I saw was a grey cement wall just in front of the windows, when I asked the agent. "What's that grey wall?" She told me very happily. "That is the BACK of the Church."

In the next place, there were a lot of things that weren't working, and the furniture was almost falling apart. The landlord's answer was just a gesture with the fingers, showing that if I paid him a little he would fix this or that, the process continued around the flat. I was sure I did not want to rent from Mr. I Can Fix It All For A Price, also, he did not really strike me as the handyman type.

One of the issues facing expats in Romania, is that many Romanians have a tendency to think that they are all rich and intelligent, maybe this is also one of the reasons why foreigners like to stay in Romania. But when looking at apartments it's often possible to see coins in the eyes of landlords like a jackpot machine, and this man had a lot of coins in his eyes.

The next day, I was shown an apartment of a friend of a friend, and it was just me. It had a view of a green garden and the only minus for me was the gas heating.

I said yes to the apartment but soon after the gas heating became a problem. It would take an hour to heat up a room, but usually I would wake up and have an hour to get ready to go out the door, and since I was not allowed to have the gas on during the night it meant getting ready in the cold. Some days it was minus 8 outside but minus 12 in my apartment. Then summer came and there was no air-conditioning.

My recommendation is stay away from gas ovens, get central heating and be sure that there is air-conditioning, because life is just better with these things, and with plenty to adjust to when first living in Romania, nobody wants the extra stress of fixing up an apartment.

Then one day I got a phone call, from the landlord. “Take care, there is a hole in the floor of your bathroom." I rushed home quite curious to see what was going on. I was living on the 3rd floor and yes, there was a hole with a view directly down to the construction workers on the 2nd floor.

I found out that they were renovating the apartment below and had discovered that the old pipes where leaking, so they had decided to drill up to my bathroom to fix the leak.

This is one of the reasons not to choose an older apartment; there are usually problems with the old water pipers.

After four days I came home to find that the toilet had been taken out of the bathroom and placed in the living room, the hole was bigger than before, the water in the bathroom closed off and the whole apartment was covered with lots of dust. I was told "don’t worry, nicio problema, it will take two days more."

I ended up staying at hotel, pensions and friends' places for 3 weeks. Then I began to search for a new apartment.

But take care, I met some really strange people, one landlord began to ask quite personal questions, going a little too far, and I realized that I was alone in an apartment with an unknown “strange” man, so always bring a friend.

One landlord wanted me to pay 6 months rent upfront. These terms are unreasonable; usually the upfront payment is max. 1-3 months. Also when it comes to the agent's commission it should be 50/50.

One landlord presented an 8 page contract in Romanian. Landlords or agents should pay for and make sure that contracts are in English and it's not a good idea to sign if they aren't.

When I read one contract I began to laugh out loud, among many other things, I was not allowed to use the apartment for phonesex, sexual activities in front of a web camera and the landlord was allowed to pay unannounced surprise visits. I just could not get myself to sign, even if it was a great apartment.

Luckily I found an apartment, and I have been living in the new apartment around a month- so far no nasty surprises and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nothing strange and unpleasant comes along.

 By Eleonore af Schaumburg-Lieppe, columnist