Today's rambling: Apartment hunting
Written on Monday, Nov. 24, 2003 at 8:18 p.m.
while feeling a bit

I got a call back today from a landlord that I'd called on Friday. He owns this big ol' Victorian house over on Liberty Street (which is the same street that on which my beloved Bluespire resides), and he said that there's an apartment there for 2-4 people (2 people if we want our own bedrooms) for $1800 a semester. Quite a steep price, considering that I was quailing at $1475 (or whatever it was) per semester at another place. But he pays for all the utilities (actually, wouldn't it technically be US, since the utilities are in the rental price?), and there's a laundry room in the basement. Kristen and I were a little iffy about the distance from campus, but we decided that since he was showing a few of those apartments to some other groups, we'd go take a look. Unfortunately, she couldn't go because she had a meeting, but I told her I'd go and take pictures for her or whatever. Not wanting to go alone, I coerced Mike to go along with me. Hehe...He's such a great guy.

Anyway, the house from the outside is really cute. It's a big white house with a wraparound porch...definitely not lacking in character. And as I said, it's on my favorite street in town (the 'historical district', as I call it), so despite the hike from campus I was pretty pleased over its location.

Now, the people who were living there were two guys. Who had a cat. Pets aren't allowed in this place, and unfortunately these weren't the sorts of guys who broke the rules but at least took care of the animal. I was so embarrassed to have Mike there with me, because the moment we got in there, we could smell the cat urine. One of the two guys had flunked out of college, and I don't know what happened to the other one but they just abandoned everything. There was a big ol' American flag hanging on the wall in the living room, some other tapestry-ish sort of thing hanging as a curtain over the window, a Bob Marley poster on a wall (actually, they could leave that there permanently, ha ha)...and yeah, there was the smell. I'm afraid they might've left the cat, since one of the doors was padlocked shut.

Of course, my initial reaction to seeing all of this was, "let me out of here, I've changed my mind," but the more I stood in there and tried to shut out what those guys had done, the more I realized that this place really could be cute. It reminded me a lot of Geoff's apartment, actually, because it was really quaint and old and all of that. Being a college apartment (and an old house that lots of people have lived in), it's not like I can expect something perfect. It's never anything I would want to live in on an extended basis, but as a college apartment it could be really cute...if it was fixed up and cleaned up.

The landlord promised that everything would be cleaned up this week, so I told him I'd come back sometime next week to look at it again. I'm not sure Kristen will go for it, though. I'm not letting my dream of what it could be interfere with what it is at the moment, so if it's still crappy looking when I go back then I'll say no. But if the place really DOES get cleaned up, it might--might--be worth considering. Assuming Kristen's into the idea. I'm going to see if she can convince her father to come up here and take a look at it, too. And get a feel for the landlord. I'm a good judge of character, and I thought the guy seemed nice, but at the same time I wasn't focusing so much on him as I was the condition of the apartment. Mike said he thought the guy seemed something of a con, and I'm willing to trust Mike's judgment, so who knows. I'd still like to get a seasoned adult to look around and give a good opinion...and make sure that certain things get put into the lease! For all I know, he might even force the rent price to go down a bit, since it isn't the most perfect apartment!

Anyway, I don't know. There's are pro's and con's to both sides of this one, and I'm definitely going to keep my eyes open to both. I'm not so desperate for an apartment--or to live on this street--that I'd let myself be duped into something less than good. I just hope I can convince Kristen that there are good aspects to it, or else it might not matter at all what I think! I can't go into this by myself, LOL!

If only we had 2 more roommates, then the price would get knocked down to $1200...but even if I knew whether mah Tiffy would be attending this uni next year, that would still leave one vacancy! And I'm not about to let Kristen get her own room. Ha ha ha... ;)