I’ve lived in Jávea long enough to know that every house here has at least three things in it that would confuse the life out of someone from the UK, the US, the Netherlands or pretty much anywhere else. People arrive thinking they’re buying a normal house. No. You’re buying a true Mediterranean puzzle where half the decisions were made either by the previous owner’s cousin or during the hottest afternoon in 1987.
Take the light switches. Why is the one for the bathroom outside the bathroom? Nobody knows. It just is. There’s probably a safety explanation lurking somewhere, but after forty years I’ve concluded it’s mainly so your family (kids) can amuse themselves by turning the lights off while you’re in the shower.
Then you’ve got the underbuild. Almost every villa has one. Some are the size of a car park, others look like a place where a gardener once stored a couple of plant pots and a broken pool float or pink inflatable sagging at the edges. When you view the house, the agent always calls it “useful storage space”. That’s polite language. What they mean is “we don’t really go in there unless something is leaking or making a noise”. You will one day discover a cupboard down there you didn’t know existed. The plumber will head straight down there if you have any water issues but we’re still not entirely sure why.
And let’s talk about taps. Yes, taps. Not the nice modern mixers. I mean the random outside taps scattered around the garden that appear to have no purpose nor any logic in their location. One near a palm tree. One randomly halfway up a staircase. One behind the barbecue area that sprays sideways for some god beknown reason. Every long-term resident here I’m sure has tried all the taps in their garden at least once, only to realise they don’t know what half of them are connected to. Don’t get me started about irrigation systems. They are degree level complicated and are strangely a bit too needy.
Air conditioning units are another one. In other countries you get one, maybe two units. In Jávea, every room has its own metallic whirring, dripping spaceship sticking out of the wall. Years ago people installed them as needed, not as a system. So you walk into a bedroom and there’s an AC model from 1999 humming away, then in the next room a shiny new one that actually cools you. I knew someone who had five different remote controls and none of them worked on the same unit twice.
And don’t get me started on the windows. You’ll have a lovely pair of double-glazed sliders in the lounge, all modern and smart, then you go into a side room and find an old wooden shutter that looks like it was stolen from a monastery 50 years ago. Nobody replaces everything at once here. It’s all done bit by bit over twenty years, depending on whether the person living there believed in insulation or preferred to “just put a cardi on”.
Oh, and the electrics. Oh, the electrics. If you grew up somewhere with tidy consumer units and organised wiring, stop comparing right now. You will open the fuse box of a Spanish villa and discover switches that don’t seem to belong to anything in the house. One will be labelled “caldera” even if you don’t have a boiler. One will be blank. One will definitely control something important like the fridge, but you’ll only realise after you’ve turned it off by mistake. We have 2 circuits and even the electrician can’t work it out. When the power goes, (which is almost instant when it looks like rain) the whole house goes. Apart from the kitchen. No one knows why. Welcome to Spain.
Then there are the terraces. British people love a patio. Spanish people love a patio. But Jávea takes the idea and multiplies it. You get terraces facing north, south, east and west. One for morning coffee, one for avoiding the wind, one for avoiding the sun, one for storing the chairs and ols plastic furniture you don’t like anymore. The first year you live here you use all of them. Religiously. By your fifth year you have one favourite spot and ignore the rest. Visitors, however, will insist on trying them all.
And finally, the pool pump room. If there’s one thing that separates the long-term Jávea resident from the newcomer, it’s the moment you first open that little shed and try to pretend you understand what you’re looking at. Pipes going in every direction. A sand filter older than you. A pump that sounds like a 1920s Massey Ferguson. I still don’t understand the pump house.
All these quirks make perfect sense once you’ve lived here long enough. Before that, you stare at them and think “why did anyone do it like this”. But that’s part of Jávea’s charm. The houses weren’t built for Pinterest. They were built for people who live outdoors most of the year, tinker with things themselves, and only fix what breaks with a loud enough bang.
And honestly, after forty years, I wouldn’t change any of it. Except maybe the bathroom light switch. That one still annoys me. Pesky kids.
