A 'Sim'ple Story

Prologue

Joe Sugg had never considered himself to be a property developer. He was a builder by trade, so he was used to seeing the construction of properties, but owning one was almost a foreign concept to him. However, Joe was desperate for a change of direction.

After leaving school and travelling the world with his mates, Joe returned to his family home for a while; somewhere familiar and reliable. But after months of getting under each others' feet, the young man realised that he needed to move out. Joe craved the independence that he had gotten used to over the past twelve months, and he also wanted to put down some roots for his future.

One of his friends had suggested that since Joe had quite a lot of savings on top of the money he had earnt whilst travelling, he could buy some land and build a house of his own. It took the young man a while to figure out the details, but once he had done some research, he started putting a plan into action.

Through his work and travel, Joe found the contacts that he needed to help get the ball rolling in building his own house. In order to maintain financial security, Joe was advised to find a lodger and share the rent with them; an idea that he could definitely get on board with. But with his friends already residing in homes of their own, Joe had to resign himself to the idea of living with a stranger.

However, the logistics of finding a housemate filled Joe with doubt: how was he supposed to advertise for it? Could he trust any of the applicants? What if they turned out to be scammers or weirdos? After long discussions (including a detailed pros and cons list) with friends, family and professionals, Joe decided to cast his net as wide as possible to find his perfect housemate.

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Dianne Buswell was looking to settle down. After leaving her family home in Australia and spending the last few years travelling the world, seeking opportunities as a performer, she knew that she needed somewhere to call home. The redhead chose the obvious root of looking online for somewhere more permanent to live than her current arrangement of sofa-surfing, much to the delight of her family; who had been worried about the uncertainty of Dianne's situation.

She was initially optimistic in her search, finding several options at once, but had to eliminate them one-by-one as they turned out to be unsuitable for her. Dianne hadn't realised that her criteria for a place to live was so strict, but once she had started looking into available properties, she found herself becoming picky; though she knew that it was for a good reason. Dianne also spent a lot of time working on a personal statement to make herself more appealing to people looking for housemates and lodgers. She managed to get references from friends, family and former employers, hoping that it would make landlords view her more favourably.

And it worked.

Of course, it took a while; but Dianne received a lot of responses from landlords. This wasn't a bad thing, but the redhead struggled for a while to decide which offers she wanted to accept, even just for an interview. But after a handful of awkward and stilted conversations with various landlords, Dianne was quickly losing hope.

Deciding to go for a run to clear her head, the last thing that the Australian had expected was to find exactly what she had been looking for. In typical Dianne style, she managed to trip over thin air whilst jogging to the local shops. Fortunately, she managed to avoid grazing her knees to shreds by skidding on a collection of flyers, and sighed in relief that she had managed to escape unscathed. As she pulled herself to her feet, Dianne glanced down at the papers and almost did a double take. The redhead bent down to pick them up so that she could get a better look, and was amazed to realise that they were copies of an advert looking for a housemate. There wasn't much information on it, aside from a rough location of the property in Newcrest (a local suburb), the rent price (which happened to be extremely reasonable), and contact details of a guy named Joe Sugg. But it was good enough for Dianne, who – despite not being a big believer in destiny – felt as though this was more than just a coincidence; it had to be a sign.