Your first month in Malta: what catches people out
Every month we hand keys to somebody who has just arrived. The big things — visa, work, somewhere to live — they have usually handled. It is the small ones that eat the first fortnight.
Addresses are approximate
Maltese addresses are often a flat number, a building name and a street, with no postcode that anybody uses conversationally. Buildings have names rather than numbers on many streets, and the name is on a plaque you cannot read from a car.
Take a photograph of your own front door and the building name on the day you move in. You will send it to more people than you expect: deliveries, a plumber, a friend, the person dropping off a sofa.
Utilities take longer than you think
Getting the water and electricity account into your own name is a process, not a form. Start it in the first week rather than the third. Your landlord or agent will usually know exactly which documents are wanted, and asking them saves a wasted trip.
Until it is in your name, the account is somebody else's and the bills are their problem to pass on — which is fine right up until it is not. Get it moved.
The heat is a scheduling problem, not a comfort problem
People arriving in summer plan their week as though the middle of the day is usable. For about three months, outdoors, it is not.
Locals shift things to the early morning and the evening, and after a few weeks so will you. If you are viewing flats in July, notice which rooms are bearable at two in the afternoon — that tells you more about the building than any description of the air conditioning.
Getting around
Buses go almost everywhere and are cheap. They are also slow, and at peak times the roads are genuinely congested for an island this size.
Before you commit to a flat, do the journey you will make most often, at the time you will make it. Not on a map — actually do it. A place that is fifteen minutes away on a Sunday can be fifty on a Tuesday morning, and that difference decides whether you like where you live.
Everything is closer than it looks and further than it feels
Malta is small. You can cross it in under an hour. That fact misleads people into thinking distance does not matter, and then they take somewhere at the other end of the island from work.
Distance matters here in time, not kilometres. Ten minutes of Maltese traffic is not ten minutes of anywhere else's.
Winter exists
It does not snow, but it rains hard, it gets windy, and Maltese buildings are built to shed heat rather than hold it. A stone flat that is wonderful in August can be cold and damp in January, particularly on the ground floor and particularly if it has been empty.
Ask how the place heats. If the answer is a single air conditioning unit in the living room, you now know what February looks like.
What to do in the first week
- Photograph the meter readings the day you get the keys.
- Photograph the state of everything, including the oven and the grouting.
- Start the utilities transfer.
- Do your commute once, at the real time.
- Find your nearest pharmacy and greengrocer. You will use both more than the supermarket.
None of this is difficult. It is just the part nobody tells you, and it is the difference between a good first month and a frustrating one.
Looking for somewhere in Malta? See what we have available, or read the guide to your area before you decide where to look.