A Trip to the Renters’ Market, Part II

No doubt most of you are in great suspense as to which rental property I finally chose. Because everything revolves around me. I’m not scheduled to get the Internet connected in my new place for another month, so I’m typing this at home and I’ll hurry and post it online when I’m on break at work.

Most of the rental properties I listed weren’t really worth a second glance. The one bedrooms with washer/dryers were so very tiny that even the benefit of the washer/dryer wasn’t worth it. Most of the two bedrooms were in either bad locations, or trashed. I saw the apartment with the funky argyle wall right after I saw the place with the horrible carpet. After seeing carpet in such disrepair, even a bad paint job couldn’t phase me; it was new. For about a week, that was the best place on the market. I took steps to make the apartment with the paint job mine.

A day before I was supposed to close on the deal, a co-worker came and told me about the one bedroom rental above her garage. I loved the spaciousness of it. I loved the views. This place actually looked like a grown-up lived here. But it was so very remote. Sure, I could walk to work. But it would be a chore going down the mountain to everything else. And the kitchen had hardly any cupboard space. Could I live with such a tiny kitchen?

I spent the night debating. I wrote the previous blog post to help make up my mind, and when that didn’t work I made a pro/con list for both properties. They got the same score. When I got to work the next day, I had tentatively made up my mind to go with the place above the garage. I told my boss about the choice I had made, and she brought up the remoteness of the place I’d chosen. Did I really want to live there? My decisiveness wavered.

I decided a quick and easy way to make up my mind again was to take one more look at the postings of the rental properties in the area. Nothing worth looking at had come up in the last week; surely the same thing would happen again today. I would realize that the best option out there was the place above my co-worker’s garage, and I would be happy with my choice.

Lo and behold, there was a new option: A two bedroom apartment close to downtown, but still in a fairly residential area. I called to make an appointment, and was able to view the apartment that night. The location was great. I could walk almost everywhere, and feel safe doing so. The apartment itself had me in awe too. It was so roomy and spacious—and clean. The appliances were older, but there was cupboard space. While there wasn’t a washer/dryer in the apartment, there was one on-site—and I’d only have to share it with two other people.

After all of the hemming and hawing and debating of the last few days, I surprised myself after the tour was done. I told the landlord that I would take this apartment on the spot! He gave me a copy of the lease, told me to look it over, and said I could meet him on Saturday, make everything legal, and move in (it was Tuesday by this point).

I drove home in shock, shaking like crazy. What had just come over me?! I was usually so annoyingly analytical about everything, yet I had just basically committed to a year lease after seeing this apartment for ten minutes! It took me two hours to calm down. When I had, I still felt like it was the right decision.

So there you have it, folks. After three weeks of looking at apartments, and days and days of agonizing over which one to choose, I went with the last place I saw. I packed and moved four days after that, and I’ve lived here for a week. Everything is unpacked now except for my books—which was actually half of the boxes I packed—and my pictures. So now the main problem I’m having is this one:


This is what I guess you would either call my landing or my entryway. It’s the same size as my living room. What do I do with this space?! As you can tell, I’m considering turning it into a reading room, but I’m open to suggestions.