bad credit

There's this thing called credit, which apparently is the be all and end all of showing you're a good human who will pay things when you say you will. It's very important when convincing people to lend you things like lump sums of money or a floor of their house.

The system pulls together things like how often you pay your credit card bill, what other bills you're paying, etc, etc. Unfortunately, what it doesn't do is connect your stuff in England with your stuff in Canada. I lived in England for over 4 years, and was never able to get a credit card because I hadn't lived there long enough to prove my credit worth when I first applied (okay, my fault, i assumed 1 year was long enough). Each consecutive time I applied (only twice) they would see my first rejection and reject me again. The bank would also trick me by phoning to tell me I was preapproved, say yes when I questioned that preapproval, then send me a rejection letter a few weeks later in the mail. great customer care Barclays, well done on that one.

Suffice to say, my credit rating in England wouldn't have a credit card attached to it, but it would have the fact that I paid gas and electricity bills, a phone bill, my rent, and had a constant source of cash coming in (oh how I miss those days!). 

So I go to find out my Canadian credit rating and there's essentially nothing on there because I haven't lived in Canada for 5 years, so it looks like I'm not doing a thing worthy of credit, and instead am somehow wheeling and dealing in cash or bars of gold. 

Tomorrow at noon is the moment of truth when our offer on renting an apartment for the next year is accepted hooray to moving downtown where the people are! despite a less than outstanding credit score or denied my parents gym does have once a month free day passes.

All positive thoughts on the landlord accepting our offer welcome.