Finding a Place to Live
Wow, long time no blog. Time keeps flying! I mean, it seems like I was just in San Diego, but I realize that was two weeks ago. Most of what I've been working on has been related to finding a place to live.
I was seriously condidering the idea of choosing a place based on pictures and floorplans. I'm not looking for anything fancy (and if you saw my current apartment you'd realize I'm not living in luxury), but I need laundry in building, a parking space, early August availability (a lot were available 8/27), near a busline, decent storage/cabinet space, a full bathroom (right now I just have a shower), and ideally heat included in rent. Bonus points for air conditioning, a full-sized stove, and a dishwasher. I also didn't want to spend the entire alloted "housing" cost on a place.
I found a couple of places that had all of this, and one place that looked particularly cute, and I was convinced that I'd want to live there. But then I realized that I don't even like to buy shoes online (damned size 10 feet!), so I just coughed up the $400 and went to AA. I made a few other appointments at places, but had my #1 in my head and hoped it would work out.
Well, let's just say I'm sooooo glad I went. Pictures could be deceiving. Really deceiving. My original #1 just wasn't what I wanted, and I didn't get a good feeling. Then I went to see dump after dump. And don't get me started on "garden level" (actually basement level) apartments...If there's snow on the ground - a reality in AA, can you never see outside?!? At this point I was getting discouraged and then drove around looking for complexes. I happened to run into one that was having an open house. I convinced myself that I could live there if nothing else came up. Well, that little voice in the back of my head (the same one who told me to fly to AA) said "something's not right about this place". A quick Google search showed me that this isn't the safest apartment complex in the world.
I had no expectations when I went to the last apartment viewing. However, it immediately felt like home. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was nice! It's a little farther away from campus than I thought I wanted to be, but it's so worth it to not live in a dump.
I was seriously condidering the idea of choosing a place based on pictures and floorplans. I'm not looking for anything fancy (and if you saw my current apartment you'd realize I'm not living in luxury), but I need laundry in building, a parking space, early August availability (a lot were available 8/27), near a busline, decent storage/cabinet space, a full bathroom (right now I just have a shower), and ideally heat included in rent. Bonus points for air conditioning, a full-sized stove, and a dishwasher. I also didn't want to spend the entire alloted "housing" cost on a place.
I found a couple of places that had all of this, and one place that looked particularly cute, and I was convinced that I'd want to live there. But then I realized that I don't even like to buy shoes online (damned size 10 feet!), so I just coughed up the $400 and went to AA. I made a few other appointments at places, but had my #1 in my head and hoped it would work out.
Well, let's just say I'm sooooo glad I went. Pictures could be deceiving. Really deceiving. My original #1 just wasn't what I wanted, and I didn't get a good feeling. Then I went to see dump after dump. And don't get me started on "garden level" (actually basement level) apartments...If there's snow on the ground - a reality in AA, can you never see outside?!? At this point I was getting discouraged and then drove around looking for complexes. I happened to run into one that was having an open house. I convinced myself that I could live there if nothing else came up. Well, that little voice in the back of my head (the same one who told me to fly to AA) said "something's not right about this place". A quick Google search showed me that this isn't the safest apartment complex in the world.
I had no expectations when I went to the last apartment viewing. However, it immediately felt like home. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was nice! It's a little farther away from campus than I thought I wanted to be, but it's so worth it to not live in a dump.
posted by fromcali at 12:23 PM
6 Comments:
very cool....the sixth sense completely worked, hunhh ? so when do move to AA and when do classes start at Ross ?
smart move visiting AA before signing the lease. Don't forget to eat as much in-n-out before you leave (esp with animal style fries)!
This makes me nervous about my place...
Forrest - It's strange how my 6th sense works. I'm moving out the second week of August. Orientation starts on 8/24 and classes start 9/5. Aah!
Brownoski - I keep meaning to get In-n-out...esp. since they built one by Oakland airport. I'll probably go tomorrow, definitely on Wednesday.
Marina - I replied to your blog. Basically, the only reason I felt I had to see the place I'm moving to is because I've been working with private owners/property managers.
Can you share the name of the apartments for the benefit of others? Thanks!
Anon - I don't feel comfortable posting the actual names of apartments I viewed/where I ended up. Also, the places weren't dumpy per say (well a couple of them were), just not worth the $ I was considering.
But, like most college towns, apartments closer to campus (particularly central campus) are more expensive, and tend to be run down due to the high turnover.
I ran into the most problems with "apartments in houses", "garden level units", and places advertised on Craigslist that didn't include clear pictures in the ad. I also needed to have Aug. availability (8/24 is the start of orientation), so that made things harder.
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