London flat hunt - first few days

THREE days into my search for a room in London, and I've already been scammed.
Searching on sites like Gumtree and Roombuddies, I was beginning to get used to the fact that my limited budget was not going to afford me any luxuries.
Then, I received a message from a member of spareroom.co.uk asking whether I would be interested in her flat located near Goodge Street, by Covent Garden in Central London, for £450 per month including all utility bills and council tax. Of course I was interested. But alarm bells should have been ringing.
When I registered my interest, an email arrived from someone purporting to be 27-year-old Arianna, an Italian hairdresser, and I could not believe my eyes.
The flat was luxuriously decorated with all ensuite rooms, and a quick look on Google street view told me the area was pretty nice too.
Arianna also sounded like the sort of person I would like to live with: in a long, detailed email, she said in broken English: "I'm a very laid back person and also, I am open minded and free with everyone.
I am looking for someone that is especially a trustworthy person, a clean and tidy and person that I could confide in as a friend and family and that could confide in me as well and I believed you would be the kind of person."
She had snared me.
My suspicions were only aroused when Arianna would only communicate via email or Windows Live Messenger - which I had to download in a desperate attempt not to lose the flat.
When speaking to Arianna, she informed me that I would have to pay a £500 security deposit before even viewing the flat, as she had been "let down before". When I refused, she said that she just needed proof that I would be able to pay the rent, but would not accept a payslip or a bank statement. Again I refused, and wished her luck in finding the right person.
On the same day, I received a generic mass email from the owners of the spareroom site, which listed the common features of a scam. She ticked all the boxes.
I'm now remembering how limited my budget is, and off to look at flats which probably actually do exist, mould and all.

The countryside's hidden treasures

STROLLING through the rolling hills and open plains of Surprise View in the Derbyshire Peak District, Nicola Moorhouse and Chris Shorter stopped for a moment to take in the views.

Noticing something strange behind a pile of rocks, they cautiously approached the object, not realising that a whole new adventure was about to begin.

What they found was much more than a sandwich box. It was a sandwich box filled with eclectic objects, a strange mixture of numbers and a log book with hundreds of signatures in it. Nicola and Chris had inadvertently discovered Geocaching.

Now in its tenth year, Geocaching has become a global past time, with an estimated five million people of all ages searching for any out of the 1,058,752 active geocaches around the world.

Known among players as a high-tech treasure hunt, the basic idea is to track down a geocache with a GPS devise using coordinates given on geocaching.com. The co-ordinates take players to the approximate location of a hidden object, which they must then find and log.

If a player wishes to take a souvenir object out of the box, they must replace it with something of equal or greater value before returning the box to its original position.

Nicola said: “I was a bit wary of what this box was at first, so I made Chris open it. I’m so glad we did though, I think it’s so exciting! It’s our new hobby now.”

Chris and Nicola left a message in the log book thanking them for the introduction into the sport – which they happened to discover on Nicola’s 24^th birthday.

The couple are now fully fledged geocachers, using the GPS on Chris’ phone to seek out hidden boxes under the name ‘Banana Bomb’.

Geocaching began on May 3^rd, 2000, only a few hours after GPS technology - which had been reserved for military use - was opened up for public access.

Dave Ulmer, a computer consultant from Beavercreek, Oregon, USA, decided to test out GPS by filling a bucket with a log book and slingshot before hiding it somewhere in Beavercreek.

He logged the coordinates on an online GPS users’ page, and within three days, two people had found it and logged their experiences online.

This May bank holiday weekend more than 600 events will take place worldwide to mark the ten year anniversary of geocaching, from Afghanistan to Quebec, and even Halifax, where on Saturday May 1^st geocachers will meet at N53 degrees 42.801 W001 degrees 52.691 – otherwise known as the pub.

For more information on geocaching, go to www.geocaching.com.