Apartment Search
Looming just on the edge of my brain is the fact that I’m going to need to find an apartment come summertime. Part of me loves to move to a new place; to re-arrange all my crap and try to fit myself into new surroundings. Another part of me loathes the hassle of uprooting said crap and trying to fit it all into a new place.
In an effort to be prepared, I decided that I would use some comp time I’d built up at work to take a couple of days off, relax and search for apartments. I spent today checking out five different properties and burned about $20 worth of gas in the process. All 5 places would put me closer to work, which would help cut down the commute, but 3 of them would also put me in a good location for multiple highways. The only problem with those 3 is that they are in a city that has something of a checkered history. It’s much better now, and the 3 buildings are all in a nice area. All 3 are converted mill buildings turned into either apartments, or apartments, condos, (get this) national parks and museums. The other 2 properties were nothing particularly new or exciting (especially since they’d both been built in the 60’s and 70’s and had similar floor plans), but either would be serviceable.
I’ll admit that I love the mill apartments; the tall ceilings, the random poles, the beams and, in one case, stairs that go nowhere. The 3 I visited varied widely in quality and, accordingly, price. Unfortunately, the one model that I really liked (with exposed brick walls, a separate den, and a really nice kitchen) wasn’t available; they only had 2 bedroom apartments. I’d be pushing my expenses to live in that unit anyway, but I was almost ready to pull the trigger when the leasing agent called me back and discovered that they did have a unit available. The rug got pulled out a bit on that one, however, as they would only hold it until mid-June and my lease isn’t up until mid-July (although I’d be willing to eat the half month for a good place).
The other nice loft place would be a top-floor unit (score) with tons of space and a real loft design, but would also push my budget. The third place had several units available (including the mysterious stairs-to-nowhere) and the prices were much more affordable for the plainest of the 1 bedrooms with no view (only $100 more than I’m paying now as half-rent in a 2 bedroom), but the place struck me as much more of a college-kid, low-income, white/black/hispanic-trash building. Note that I could give a shit about living with whites, blacks or hispanics (or any other race), but I can’t stand the trash element of any race. I don’t want to sleep with earplugs because Lurleen/Shaniqua/Juanita is screaming lung-scarringly loud at Jethro/Tyrone/Pedro because the latter done fucked the former’s sister and drank the last of the black label. Neither do I want to hear a bunch of screaming college kids at 3:30am. And finally, I don’t want to play dodge-the-idiot-kid screwing around the parking lot on their bikes and shooting out into lanes of vehicle traffic without looking (which I’m already doing in my current apartment complex).
The other two buildings were, again, pretty generic. They were all what I call “parking lot buildings” in that most of the view is of the parking lot. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that with crappy windows (like in my current place) you can hear every moron starting or stopping his car/alarm/stereo at all hours of the day or night. The first one actually seemed to have a decent soundproofing going on with the windows; I couldn’t hear traffic passing on the main road that this apartment faced. They also have an olympic-sized lap pool, basketball courts, tennis courts, a good-sized fitness center, pool hall and a (get this) gardening area where you can snag a plot and grow some veggies/flowers. The leasing agent was also a cool guy, which is a big plus. The problem is: lots and lots of kids (the sheer number of BMX bikes in the various bike racks was a big giveaway) plus plenty of young kids with riced out cars.
The second place was nicer than the first and the leasing agent, Danielle, was quite cute (always a bonus). Problem was the second place had more of a parking lot apartment feel than the first and there were a alot of kids/young adults walking around during the middle of the day sporting colors. The town with these two apartment complexes is not what I’d call urban, but it is a minor city, and it certainly doesn’t have the reputation that the mill apartment town has, but still; I saw more “unsavory characters” in the regular town than in the mill city.
I must be getting old. Except that my roommate, who’s only 26, is even more concerned about the same crap I was spouting off about above than I am. But then, he is something of a curmudgeon for 26.
Decisions, decisions. Luckily I have time to work it out, depsite the leasing agents’ universal cry of “but it’s going to rent right away, so move quickly!”. Apartment complexes are pretty common, and that first town was boiling over with apartment buildings. Maybe I should start looking at apartments in houses? Craigslist, here I come!
