Adventures in House Hunting
When we got married we had a surprisingly easy time finding a place to live, comparatively speaking. Sure,almost no one got back to us about the places we were interested in, but once we got a response, set up an appointment and came to see the place we fell in love with it right away. Our apartment is almost perfect, if only it allowed cats. As you know, we need cats in our life and so we adopted two sweet baby girl cats and now need a new place to live where they can live with us.
So the hunt began back in November when we realized that our lease was going to be up almost two months earlier than we expected. Of course looking for places to live during the holiday season is madness and after an initial investigation into a very tiny duplex our search was put on hold until after the new year. Now, back on the hunt, we spent most of Saturday snooping around several promising areas, looking for places to rent.
We started with two appointments to see two different places. The first was a townhouse ten minutes from where we are now in a slightly depressed looking area. It’s not actually a bad area from what we can tell, it just looks a little rundown. The road that took us to our potential home was a narrow two-way with cars parked along one side making it essentially a one-way with traffic going both ways. Lots of dodging was happening. These are the cons we are faced with, the price we would pay to live in a little two-bedroom townhouse that’s pretty much perfect for us. The landlord was super nice and totally cool with our cats. The kitchen is spacious and there’s a little patio out back. The upper floor hold two bedrooms that are equally sized and there’s a bathroom on the first floor as well as the second. Best of all there’s a garage and storage in the basement. We could finally consolidate our stuff! We’d have to get our own wash and dryer, but that would be a good step for us towards our own collection of appliances, which we’ll need, no doubt, when we actually buy a home.
So house number one was awesome and we left super excited about the place itself, but not super into the area. It was a hassle to get to, awkward to get out of, and we’d have to do that every day. Parking is an issue if we have more than one car-full of guests, and the raggedness of the area kind of had my husband worried. A check on the area shows that it’s pretty safe, though, with a low crime-rate, despite it’s sketchy neighbors. We’ve been talking about it for two days now, talking ourselves in and out of it.
The second place we went to look at was the third floor apartment in a triplex Victorian home in the town where my husband lived before we got married. We love the location because it’s a nice community with easy access to all major highways in the area and closer to my parent’s place than where we are now. While this would be awesome, the apartment was less than awesome. Third floor means all the stairs. There is also no way we’d be able to get our couch up there with the way the stairs curve and the narrow door leading up to the apartment. The apartment it’s self is awkwardly portioned with a giant living/dining room taking up most of the space with a little itty bitty kitchen and bathroom at the far end. Likewise the two bedrooms consist of one reasonably sized bedroom, and one itty bitty bedroom big enough maybe for a bed. Maybe. But hey, it had a mantle in it, so that’s coo. It was just awkward all over and the building itself wasn’t in great condition. Couple that with coin-opp laundry three floors down a narrow servant’s stair and we were not at all into this one.
So we were left with an apartment we hated in an area we love and a townhouse we loved in an area we weren’t crazy about. Not a great start to the day, but it could get better. We went adventuring, as is the way with Scavos, now that they’re mixed with Farki. We drove around that area and a few others, searching for “for rent” signs. The area we were hoping for produced nothing but disappointment. We moved on to scope out a place a friend of my father-in-law had told us about near him. The area was a little better, but the place is a second floor duplex which we’re not inclined towards at this point. We’ve found duplexes don’t tend to have the kind of space we’re looking for. We wondered around the area, though, and one near by, looking for signs, investigating the ones we found with calls and google searches and coming up empty handed after all that.
It was a discouraging day. Our last move had been so easy, the first place we looked was the one. I guess in my head I was expecting it to be the same, just find a place, look at it, and take it. But between all the ones from November being snatched up before we could even inquire and the lack of living space in the places we did look at, it’s been rough, and time is ticking away. We have to move out by the end of February and we’re starting to stress out about it. We have options, of course, places of last resort, an offer from some friends to sublet their place for a few months after they move. It’s a tempting offer. It would help them cover the remaining rent for a place they’re not living in anymore and give us more time to search during a time when more places will be opening up, but the idea of half moving and then moving again is exhausting.
One last ray of hope. We found a place near by the one we went to see first on Saturday that has three bedrooms for a similar price. We hope to investigate that one this week, hopefully soon, and make a final decision on the first townhouse. The guy was really nice and we don’t want to keep him waiting, but at the same time, I kind of want to keep it in our pocket, as a just in case. Even if we don’t find anything else, this place is here and we know we love it. To my mind, there’s always going to be something that irks us. There’s always going to be that thing that we can’t wait to get rid of. Here it’s the tiny kitchen and the lack of water pressure. There it’ll be the narrow road and awkward turn in. I feel like it’s inevitable that there’ll always be something. The quest is, does the place’s benefits outweigh the thing? We’ll find out I guess, as our adventures in house hunting continue.
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