Bike storage

​I know heaps of you are interested in how the ‘bike storage issue’ is playing out in our apartment  building. 

Just recap, for those of you who know about it, our ‘esteemed’ neighbors up the back of our building in Beaune are, to put it in simple, understandable, succinct and incontrovertibly cogent terms, arseholes. I only want to refer to them using their initials (to be fair), their names are Gerard and Simone Berges. They are rich and incredibly obnoxious. I am certain that they don’t want us as co-tenants, especially as we open our apartment for short stay holidays. 

The battleground they have chosen is our bike storage within the apartment block when we are in residence. They have determined that the following locations are unacceptable: leaning against the wall, at the top of the stairs to the cellar, under the spiral staircase leading to our apartment (completely out of sight) and under the stairs next to the bins. 

We have been totally DREADING the inevitable confrontation when we once again put our bikes in the courtyard for our occasional use. Dreading it. Sleeplessly. Dreading. 

Happily, however, there has been a solution. A political one. A few months ago another apartment owner, Anais, contacted us re a forthcoming body corporate (‘Syndic’) meeting. Seems that the Berges were proposing an expensive refurbishment of the street entrance. Anais didn’t agree, mostly because of the cost, which she could not afford. We gave Anais our proxy vote and the Berges’ proposal failed. 

During our discussion with Anais we mentioned the bike parking problem. She was all over it, sharing our view of the ‘Bs’ as outlined above. She owns the ramp leading to the cellar and readily agreed to let us use that space for the bikes. 

I checked out this arrangement with the Syndic when I visited their office on another matter. It seems that the Bs have no recourse whatsoever. We have not seen or heard from them our whole visit. That, along with no bells blasting in our ears at 6:00 am every morning ranks as the two highlights of our stay here in Beaune. 

Toodles!