Smiths Falls, Ontario: Like the Stonecutters, only tastier and more mysterious

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Well, here we go again.

I’m in engineering school. I have a CO-OP job placement for the summer in Smiths Falls, Ontario. It’s a little town west of Ottawa. I’ll be working at the town’s big employer, the Hershey Chocolate plant. Work starts on 5 May.

Smiths Falls is apparently surrounded by an event horizon, such that no information may leave it. Despite all my best efforts at observation, I can conclude only one of three things:

This town has either

  1. No access to the internet,
  2. A vacancy rate of zero, or
  3. A super-strict set of local bylaws that clandestinely make it some kind of secret society that only the elite and locally-approved penumbriati can have access to, effectively barring auslanders like me from having any access to the lucrative Smiths Falls Rental Market, for reasons too secret to be known by anyone.

I’ve tried every on-line rental search place I can find, I’ve tried Google on all kinds of different keyword strings, I’ve tried the town website. I can’t find a single available room or apartment or treehouse for rent.

I’ve tried asking my employer for help, I’ve tried e-mailing the town’s public service people, I’ve tried e-mailing an old colleague who grew up there. No luck.

I don’t have a car. I can’t afford to rent an airplane. I do have a bicycle, but it’s too far to use that. It looks like, that I’ve got no choice but go to Smiths Falls in person for a day, and run around on foot (maybe they have public transit) looking for a place, any place, to live for the summer.

Classes just ended for the semester, and exams start next week. I’ve got exams every second day or so for the last two weeks of April, so I really can’t go then. Thus, next week it is. Late next week, I get up early, take VIA Rail to Smiths Falls, buy a newspaper, run around to every place listed in the classified ads, and then catch the late train back. If I don’t find a place to live on that day, I’m pretty well stuck.
Soooo… Any suggestions? Have I overlooked some easy way of findng a place? How should I best use my time while I’m in CandyTown?

Crosses Fingers Does one of you live in Smiths Falls by some chance? Do you have a closet or a garage or a doghouse you’re willing to rent out to a poor, starving student for four months? I’m polite and quiet and don’t drink and would do your laundry and walk your dog and mow your lawn and scrub your floors and anything you want… :slight_smile:

2

Please follow up later and fill us in about your first trip up the Hershey highway.

3

You know, you’re not kidding. I couldn’t find anything online about rentals either. You ought to just call the Chamber Of Commerce and good luck with the position.

4

Town website

Their newspaper is called the Record News. Their phone number is 613-283-3182. There is no online classifieds presence. I am getting them to photocopy their residential listings and fax them to me. Email me and I can set you up.

All calling is local from Ottawa too (where I am), so if you need other things, let me know. My email addie is in my profile.

Ryan.

5

Oh, neato. I looked around that website, but I didn’t find the contact information for the newspaper.

  • e-mailing *
6

Well, many thanks to CuriousCanuck, who penetrated the thick curtain of mystery surrounding Luddite Falls and sent me a handful of classified ad listings which the local newspaper had sent to him by telegraph or facsimile machine or something. :slight_smile:

I called them all, and got answering machines…

Here’s hoping they call back. crosses fingers

7

I have actually been to Smith Falls once.

And unless I miss my guess it’s the type of town where a young person could turn up in the middle of the night and be taken in and found housing, without much fuss.

I think you gotta relax, or you’ll never make it in Smith Falls.
:smiley:

8

Maybe, if you’re a really good citizen, they’ll give you one of their neato “secret society” rings

9

Smiths Falls is too small to have real estate listings online, I would think.

You could live in Kingston or Ottawa and commute if you have a car. Personally, I’d prefer that :slight_smile:

10

Well, of all the places listed in the paper (that were within my price range) only one seems to be still available. It’s kinda pricy, and I’ll need to get some funniture and appliances, but it’s a start.

I go on Thursday to check it out. And to get fitted for my uniform (for the Candy Factory).

I need some more, though (in case this place is taken by Thursday, or doesn’t work out for some reason), so the searching continues.

elbows: Relax? What do you mean? I’m perfectly relaxed AS IT IS!!! :wink: No, actually, I’m not too stressed out, yet. But I do need a place to live.

Mars & Co, do you know something I don’t? Theere’s something about your name…

RickJay, it’s an hour commute from Ottawa by car… and I don’t have a car.

Time to go ask around among people I know, in case they have friends in that crazy town…

11

SUCCESS!!

I traveled to Smiths Falls today to visit the plant. The job looks pretty interesting.

A couple of days ago I heard back from one of the people I used to teach with- a friend of her family has a room in his basement that he might let me live in.

So, I called the friend. Here’s the deal:

He owns a house in Smiths Falls, about a fifteen-minute bike ride from the chocolate plant. He has a modest, but sizeable room in the basement, with a bed and a desk. He’ll let me live there for the summer. Rent: $0. Other charges: $0. I don’t need to buy furniture, but I do need to buy my own food while I live there. I can use his kitchen to cook. He has high-speed internet, and a router, so if I get myself a network card, I can have free internet.

Oh, plus: He’s getting a job in Ottawa, so he won’t be around much. I might have the house to myself a whole lot.

I went and met him today… and he showed me the room, and took me to Canadian Tire to have me a key made for the house.

He’s even offered to help me move.

Conclusion: He’s a nice guy, and this is the deal of the century.
Obviously, if you know someone “on the inside” of the Smiths Falls Secret Society, things can be very sweet indeed. :smiley:

Addendum: CuriousCanuck, You will get some chocolate from me by September. Thanks again for your help.

12

Mmmmm chocolate :slight_smile:

Seriously though, it was no effort at all. I’m glad things worked out well! I’d say no need for the chocolate, but it is so hard to pass that up. :wink:

In any case, congrats… maybe on a drive through that area we can do coffee or what not. Chocodope anyone?

13

Mmmmmmmm, Chocodope…

I went on a tour of the Hershey Factory many many moons ago. I don’t remember too much of it, but for some reason, in my mind, every factory looks like the Springfield Nuclear Plant.

Mmmmmm, nuclear chocolate.