A portrait of the woman who used to live in my flat

I never met her, of course, but I know that she used to live here. When I rented the flat just over a month ago, the letting agent told me that the previous tenant had stayed for two years, because "she liked it so much." In this short statement, I found out that, well, the previous tenant was a woman, and that she, like me, really liked this flat.

I like my home to be very clean. In fact, I am just a bit freakish about cleaning when I first move into a new place. I want to know that I'm starting fresh, and that, as my Aunty Nancy said, when dirt finally does accumulate weeks later, at least I know it is my dirt. So the night before I moved in (which consisted of dragging two suitcases along the cobblestones), I came over armed with microfibre cloths, eco cleaning products, and a bottle of wine. (Side note on the bottle of wine: I am a notorious nester. I hate moving, and find it extremely stressful. I actually was happy to return to my residence room the night after my clean-fest, because the residence room had become familiar, and I really like familiarity in a domicile. So the red wine was meant to drown my sorrows at having to acclimatise, again, to a new space. And I already liked this new space - imagine if I didn't?) Cleaning the space is a kind of ritual - a ritual of making it my own, and putting my little Ecover stamp all over the floors, doors, walls, bathroom grout, baseboards, light fixtures, sinks, door handles (you get the picture).

As I was cleaning (moving furniture around, etc.), I came upon a very small number of items that collectively told me a little bit about the previous tenant. It's time for me to dispose of them, so I arranged them on my counter, and took a pic:

I know these are very few items upon which to paint a portrait of an entire human, but if you consider that the letting agency had professional cleaners in before I took possession of the place, then really, this is a fairly good haul. Let's take a closer look, from left to right:

The first item is a bookmark that contains a poem about beagles, so from this we can assume that the woman who used to live in my flat (WULMF for short) like to read. And she liked dogs -- particularly small ones with good noses. And... unless this was an unwanted present that she failed to regift -- she was okay with something as cheesy as a bookmark with an ode to beagles on it. This tells us something of her personality, but admittedly, not that much. I found the bookmark under the bed, so I guess she liked to read in bed.

WULMF is either a woman of simple tastes, or of small means, when it comes to clothing. But she does buy clothing, so that tells you something. The hanger is from Dunnes, a medium-end department store that has decent stuff, but also some really cheap stuff. Such as the "Le Bain" toilet brush I bought for 5 Euros, which just broke this morning because I was, er, scrubbing the toilet too vigorously (I don't spend my all my time cleaning, despite the apparent focus of this posting. But it's Thanksgiving at home and not here, so what else am I to do with my weekend?) Anyway, this hanger is just representative of the 10 or so identical hangers she left behind in the wardrobe. There were also some metal hangers, and one hanger from Penny's (kind of like Walmart), but the bulk of the hangers were from Dunnes. Dunnes puts the size of the clothing on the hanger itself, and they are all size 12. This means that WULMF is an average sized person. I'm a size 8, which is actually the smallest size they carry at Dunnes, and I am kind of puny. Back in Canada, I think they would call it a 4 or 6. So, WULMF is bigger than me, but not too big for our very modestly sized flat. Oh yes, she also likes girly things, because there was a tag from Dunnes underneath the bed, and it read "Shorty Yellow Polka Dot Dress." The tag didn't make it to the picture -- it was likely recycled with the empty bottle of wine.

Speaking of things that didn't make it to the photo, I also found out that WULMF is straight. Or at the very most, bisexual. OR she just likes to play with condoms. I'll never really know, but the empty, torn condom package that also made its way out from under the bed means that at least one of the previous statements is true.

WULMF fancied herself a gardener, but she was not a very good one. There are about 5 pots filled with earth on the balcony, but nothing survives in any one of them. The earth has been very useful to me, however, for repotting those IKEA plants from several blog-posts ago.

WULMF was not a very thorough person, because as I was cleaning out the (emptied) kitchen cupboards, I found a package of instant noodles (one of those "yummy real Italian side dish in 5 minutes!" thingies) that expired in 2004. Recall that the letting agent said that WULMF was here for two years. This means that the pasta side dish predates her occupation of the flat. She just never looked that far back in the cupboards, which I think means that either a) she is very short, b) she is not very curious, or c) she didn't cook much, because she didn't need the entire cupboard space for food storage.

Back to the photo. The blue thing with an "R" on it is, I think, a perfume bottle. I don't know of any brand of perfume that has this kind of bottle, so I am going to assume that her name starts with R. That, and the fact that the piece of junk mail in the mailbox had her name on it, and indeed her name does start with R. I like this little bottle, and might just keep it on my counter for its decorative properties. WULMF likes pretty things.

WULMF (or should we call her R?) had medium to long hair. She didn't have short hair, because she's straight. Whoops, I mean, she didn't have short hair, because she had this red baubly thing that is only useful if your hair is long enough to pull back in some fashion. I found this hair tie between the couch cushions (or should I say, the vacuum found it, announcing its catch with a deafening squeal of delight). From this fact, we can also surmise that she would recline on the couch, release her hair from the bauble, and watch television. The tv placement corroborates this rather speculative 'fact'. I must add that she was very careful with her hair ties, because if this had been my flat prior to when I moved in (?), there would be at least fifteen hair ties in the couch.

And finally, we come to the last bit of information. On the right of the picture there is a ticket. It's a receipt for the Dublin bus from the airport to another location in the city. There is a fair bit we can learn from this artefact. First, she took at least one trip by plane while living here. On this particular trip, she returned back to Dublin on July 6, 2009. Also, she had at least one friend or acquaintance in Dublin, because instead of coming home to this flat, she went to a different address on the way back from the airport. She's also fairly frugal, because this receipt is for the regular city bus, which costs just over 2 Euros from the airport, when, by comparison, the airport shuttle costs 6 or 7 Euros one way.

WULMF: A short, girly woman of medium build with medium to long hair, who earns a modest income, likes dogs, reading, and watching tv while reclining. Doesn't cook much, once tried her hand at container gardening, travels abroad, but likes to keep costs down. Had sex with a man once.

Nice to meet you, WULMF.