[KiwiHopeful]

Gas cooktops are served by tanks underneath the counter (yup, like your barbeque).

That is strange, but I have seen houses with normal (regular?) size cylinders outside.

Toilets are sometimes in a closet next to the bathroom. No sink in there, just the commode.

Yeah, that is strange too, isn't it. Right idea, I guess, but poor execution.

Entry hall closets and linen closets are rare. We were told that?s the reason upright vacuums are hard to find (more on that later).

We bought ours at Harvey Norman, which has a full range of Dyson, Nilske, etc. I didn't notice that uprights were difficult to find. They seemed to have both kinds in abundance.

Most rooms only have two electrical outlets, each accommodating only one plug.

I think that's an older house thing, though ours has an abundance of plugs. But like older homes in the US they are rare on exterior walls.

Windows are single-paned and don?t have screens.

Having no screens does take getting used to. I am surprised, though, by how few bugs we've found in the house. When it gets warm, we leave the windows, the front door, and the French doors on the back wide open. I think the wind blows them all away.

Rentals usually do not include ?whiteware? (fridge, microwave, washer and dryer - no matter the color).

True, though they can be had for weekly rental at a reasonable price.

And clothes dryers* are rarer than unicorns, even high end homes have clotheslines. When we purchased one, the salesman said we wouldn?t need an extended warranty because we would only need to use the dryer in the winter.

I'm not sure about the rarity of clothes dryers. I've seen a fairly good selection of them at Harvey Norman, Noel Leeming, PowerStore, etc. If you're expecting your rental to include one, though, you'll be disappointed.

*Only one brand of dryer sheets is available and they smell like the inside of a New York taxi cab in July.

I have experienced neither, so I can't comment.

99% of vacuum cleaners here are canisters which can be stored more easily than uprights in tight quarters. Most vacuums don?t have beater brushes (think just the upholstery attachment), so only surface dirt is removed. Huge ick, right? We bought an upright Dyson, ran it over the carpet throughout our rental, and emptied the canister four times on the initial run.

I can't disagree with any of this, except to say that beater brushes can be had depending on the model of vacuum one purchases--not unlike in the US.

I wish I had filled up the extra space in our container with the following: toilet paper, paper towels, Oxiclean, Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, Soft Scrub, dryer sheets. Wet and dry Swiffer cloths can be found but cost a fortune. New Zealand cleaning products do not clean. They push the dirt and grime around and leave a streaky mess. Do not pack anything flammable, but do give consideration to any other cleaning items. You?ll thank me.

Paper products do come at a premium here. Though I confess to being a big consumer of toilet paper, I've never been one for paper towels, so their price hasn't really mattered to me. As to the availability of cleaning products, I think one of the issues here is that NZ stores don't have the quality of homogeneity. That is, each grocery store has cleaning supplies, but even within the chain you will find a variation in the range of products carried. Store to store the variation is even greater. There may very well be *one* Woolworth's in Chch that carries Oxiclean ... and it will be the only one. I've found only two places that sell gel deodorant (as opposed to spray or roll on). Both are parts of larger chains and other stores in the chain don't stock it. That takes some getting used to when one is accustomed to being able to walk into any Wal-Mart, Target, RiteAide, Walgreens, etc. etc. and find that from Maine to Washington 90% of the products are identical.

I do have a huge problem with the quality of NZ laundry detergent. I've yet to find one at any price that actually works well. Tide certainly spoiled me. I've given in and buy whatever is on sale.

I hope others in the forum will mention aspects I may have overlooked. This post was written merely to prepare others for what they will encounter as new residents of this country.

Hear hear! Forewarned is forearmed. (Whatever that means.)

New Zealand is not paradise. Or maybe it is. I don't know. Ask 5 different people what heaven will be like and you'll get 5 different answers--and if they were all true, it probably wouldn't be heaven for anyone!

I knew--thanks to this forum and others I've visited and books I've read and articles I've found elsewhere--that life here would be different. I had a suspicion that it would be a lower standard of living but a higher quality of life. That's what I've found. Believe me, I'm as good a shopper as most in the US--I really miss being able to spend an hour or so hunting around TJ Maxx or Marshall's for a sweet deal on a Joseph Aboud shirt--but I don't miss having little else to do on a Saturday than wish I was someplace else.

I've been working on an post about questions potential migrants should ask themselves before leaving home. It keeps getting longer and longer ... But a key one is, 'How do you deal with life's little annoyances?'

Please don't take that as an implied attack against anyone's character--believe me, I have enough character flaws to fill a novel by Tolstoy. If dealing with them--the minor annoyances, that is--were easy, there'd be no self-help books, and probably no religion too. (I didn't intend to riff on John Lennon there.)

Rather, it's a real issue. People who don't deal well with things back at home probably shouldn't try out an expat lifestyle. No one should come here thinking that NZ is enough like the US that they won't notice the difference every single day.

But, then again, I'd be disappointed if it were the same.