Carolyn Grant
If you live in a tiny house, or micro-condo, where do you put your big screen TV? And do you have to go outside to be far back enough to see it?
These questions are on my mind this week as I notice that developers have come up with a new way for first time buyers to get into Vancouver's scorching hot real estate market. Yes, the micro-condo has arrived. Developers in Surrey have put up a 35 story tower with suites as small as 350 square feet. You can purchase one of these micro units for just under $94,000. Yes, for under $100,000 you can be living large in Surrey. Well, not large. Small. Micro, actually.
What does one get in a $94,000 350 sq. ft. Condo? Space-saving strategies include a clothes rack that slides out from the wall, rather than a traditional closet with opening doors. The suite's couch pulls out into a bed. Appliances are smaller, but still do what appliances do.
I guess it beats renting a corner of someone's living room (!!) I kid you not. Some renters in Vancouver are paying $600 a month for a corner in someone else's apartment. It's a real steal, I mean you get a hospital style curtain to pull around your blowup mattress and everything.
It all makes the Kimberley and Cranbrook market look mighty reasonable, doesn't it?
Speaking of miniature things, a small drone crash landed on the grounds of the White House this week, causing great security concerns. The man who claimed responsibility and ownership of the drone has an excuse. He was drunk. I'll let you take it from there. Discuss.
And now let's turn to Canada's tiniest province where the large size of MLA severance packages is no small issue. We're not talking pensions here, which I am sure we will all agree are generous for politicians of both the provincial and federal level. We are talking severance. In PEI, an MLA leaving office receives one month pay for every year served. But here's the beauty of this perk. If you lose the election, you get severance. I suppose in that case, you could argue that the voters laid you off. But if you quit, you get severance as well, which seems a pretty sweet deal. Most of us poor schmoes will not get a severance package if we quit our jobs.
In Newfoundland/Labrador a woman found a severed reptile head in her bag of frozen broccoli. It was not a big head, in keeping with what has become a theme of this column, but it was, nonetheless, a head. Perhaps the person bagging the veggies was drunk as well. And, as the woman herself asked, where is the rest of the reptile?
If you can get $94,000 for a micro-condo in Vancouver, what would you pay for a castle? Of course you'd have to live on Echo Lake, Saskatchewan and the castle is made of ice. Yes, a family has constructed an ice castle. It's quite an impressive structure, looks comfortable. Comfortable being a relative term for a structure made of ice on a frozen lake in Saskatchewan in the dead of winter. You might want to leave your boots on.
Finally, at the Wildlife Haven Rehabilitation Centre in Ile Des Chenes, Manitoba, they have a new, diminutive greeter — a crow named Jet. Jet came in with a broken wing and to the surprise of workers at the centre, he speaks. English. Clearly. Because one of his favourite words is 'hello' Jet will be placed at the front door to greet visitors. Which is all well and good, but he can't be at the front door 24-7. He will need to rest. Workers have already found he doesn't care for small spaces. Not too small anyway. I wonder if Jet would be interested in a micro-condo in Surrey? I hear they're a real steal.