Since acquiring Beaatrice (my Trice) at the beginning of last October, I've kept her on our balcony (we live on the third floor of a four-storey block of flats), as I feel it's too risky to keep her locked up outside, or in our bike shed where others have access. Keeping Beaatrice on our balcony during the winter months, while not the best solution, is a satisfactory temporary arrangement, despite having to carry her through our flat twice a day, and up and down the stairs. I know she’s safe there.

We have storage space in the cellar, and some occupants of apartments in B house also have their storage space in our cellar. They're wooden frames with chicken wire, which can be locked. Of course ours is pretty full, no room for a trike there! But a neighbour upstairs has his cellar space empty, but with a lock on it:

Long before I decided to get a trike, I asked him if he would rent his storage space to us, but he said no. Earlier this year, when I bumped into him on the stairs, I explained our problem with storage space for the trike, and asked him to reconsider, to rent the space to me for the summer months, promising I’d be ready to move her out the minute he requested. He said he’d think about it. Meanwhile in conversation with several other neighbours, they told me similar stories (no, they don’t have trikes!). They also asked him if they could rent his space in the cellar, and had been told no.

A few weeks went by, Easter came and went, and one afternoon last week I met him again on the stairs. He said to me:

‘Uh, it’s no go I’m afraid.’
I said ‘you mean the cellar?’
‘Yes, no go. Thanks’ (odd, but they sometimes say that, not ‘sorry’, but ‘thanks’!)

What could I say? ‘Well, you rotten #&%/&?€, it’d only be for 4 months!’? (And I’d keep it clean, and I’d vacate it immediately you say!) No, no point bothering. I couldn’t even ask him why he’d decided not to rent it to me – that’s his business, not mine. But if it’s because he’s said no to the other neighbours, I’d counter that with the fact that I’d be storing just one item, and it’s easier to get someone to remove one item, than a storage space full of stuff. Plus the fact that I’d put it in writing and sign it for him, promising to keep my side of the deal.

Ah well, our hopes for an easy solution are dashed, and for now we’re stuck with the problem. We’ll just have to hope something will come up.