I am against moving into a private house in retirement, even with all the comforts and in a good place. His opinion I want to explain in detail:
1.Problems with the sewer system. The central sewer system in our villages has not been conducted and is not planned. It replaces the toilet on the street, its counterpart in the form of a hole in the floor in the unheated corridor or septic tanks. Septic allows you to have a full-fledged warm bathroom in the house, but requires care – pumping, cleaning, checking the equipment. Not every retiree has the money and energy for such work.
2. There is no central water supply either. In order to have water in the taps in the house, you need to take care to punch a well or dig a well near the house. Even if you make yourself a stand-alone water supply, it will require care – in winter the pipes freeze, in summer the pump can burn due to high loads, well and well periodically need to be cleaned of silt. Doing it yourself pensioner is not easy, and money to attract professionals do not always have enough.
Need to take care of heating. If the house has a stove, you need to prepare wood from the summer, if fueled by gas or electricity, you will have to spend a lot of money to buy a boiler and pay for utilities. You can’t afford to set up a heating system with a single pension, and any breakdown, especially in winter, will cost you a pretty penny.
4. You have to clean the snow in the yard yourself. In the village there are no sweepers and communal workers, who will come out to fight the elements, only a shovel and a few hours of work in the morning to get to the gate, with repetition in the evening, so that snowdrifts overnight did not support the door, threatening to lock the residents inside the house until the thaw.
5. Once the battle with the snow is over, the battle with the grass begins. In summer, the grass must be cleaned at least once a week, otherwise the vegetable garden will simply not be visible behind it. To cope with a manual scythe pensioner is not under force, which means that from the pension will need to collect on the purchase of a trimmer.
6. Taking care of the garden takes all the free time and available forces. You can dig the earth with a shovel or use a power tiller to collect it, but in addition to this, from spring to autumn you will have to water the beds, weed, plant, harvest and prepare the harvest for storage every day. My husband and I for the flowerbed at the entrance and sometimes we ask my son to help, and a large plot requires a lot more effort than there is an average retiree.
7. Not every village has the amenities of civilization such as a hospital, post office, pharmacy. Sometimes it takes a couple of kilometers to get to the store, it’s good if you have a car, and if not – a bicycle or feet to help. To get to the doctor or a hairdresser – will have to go into town for more shopping there too. But the air is fresh, you can see the stars, hear the birds.
Life in the village is not easy and not cheap at all – every year the house needs repair, even if small, but it is necessary to buy seeds and fertilizers for the plot, to take care of the yard. It is easier for an elderly person to grow old in an apartment.
