The weather

The weather has been rotten. It’s been cold and damp, even up on the piano nobile where I live – 8 meters above the water level. I was recently in one of those student hovels near the old beccarie (i.e. slaughterhouses) by San Giobbe, with thick walls and tiny windows facing a blind wall, dark even at noon, and it was like walking into a Turkish bathhouse – a wall of thick, wet air hit me in the face, like a dirty rag – only it was ice-cold. The girl who lives there has to iron every item of clothing before she puts it on.

The rotten weather exacerbates the Venetian housing problem.

People live crammed in hovels, because it is all they can afford: Italy’s wages have fallen behind Spain’s and Greece’s, but Venice properties have been rising parabolicly and are among the highest in Europe. Between rich foreigners who buy up vacation properties, only to board them up for eleven months of the year, investors in holiday properties (which rent short term at hotel-like prices), and just plain old speculators, prices have become whimsical. 70 square meters in a nice area, 1^st floor, but certainly no piano nobile, and certainly not anywhere near the Grand Canal, asking price: 1.7 million. Euros. Try that with a twelve thousand a year before tax.

So, they live in hovels here, packed like rats. In the winter, the homes become unbearably damp and moldy, yet there is nowhere to go to. There are virtually no indoor public spaces – in bars – very tight spaces – one stands at the counter to avoid the coperto, or better yet, outside, so that he may smoke. There are no malls, no gyms. The museums are free for the residents, but residents would not be caught dead in a museum, would they? And, in any case, they have no sitting spaces, perhaps for a reason.

This adds to all the other frustrations Venetians have to put up with. Lousy government, stupid bureaucratic procedures, inconvenient retail, unreliable public services, high prices, crowds of tourists blocking your way in the narrow passage ways, beggars, touts, thieves. Small wonder then that everyone is angry and rude and everyone smokes up a storm.

Life at the ground level isn’t much worth living, really. It’s surprising then to hear how low the suicide rate is.