katherine elise! you give us no peace! we'll call the police!
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29 October 2005

Homefulness?


So, the apartment! We have been promised by many people that it will be ready for us on Monday, and we can come get the keys and move our things in on Monday night. However, these are the same people who, a week ago, promised us Apartment #1 on Wednesday morning and then on Wednesday afternoon said that Apartment #1 had serious water damage, but we could have Apartment #2. So Thursday morning we signed a lease for Apartment #2, and on Thursday night when we went to see it again, we were told that the renovations in Apartment #2 wouldn't be finished for another two months, but Apartment #1 was habitable after all, and the water damage story was a big lie told by the rival real estate company. And they'd already changed the address on the lease, so it was no problem. That sounds tremendously legal! So then on Friday morning I went in prepared to raise hell about Apartment #1 and its water problems or lack thereof, but instead the broker dude told me he had another apartment to show me, Apartment #3. GREAT. Turned out Apartment #3's previous tenants had been evicted, and as a parting gift chose to smear the walls and ceilings and many other surfaces with red and blue and silver paint, plaster them with CDs, shards of mirror, and papers, and glue a plastic alligator to the kitchen wall. And so on. AND YET THIS WAS OUR BEST BET. So now we are waiting, and hoping that the de-alligator-ification of our future home is done by Monday. They promised! It must be true! Right?

Well, crap.

On a positive apartment-related note, I've discovered some cool websites recently:
Apartment Therapy is a sort of decorating/furniture/appliance blog, full of many delights we can't afford and a few small ones that we can. I spent awhile looking at all the entry photos for their "Smallest, Coolest Apartment Contest"... thinking, yes, it could be worse! But the spaces are really cool. Seriously.
Also! Colorcharts has swatches of all the colors of paint from many paint manufacturers collected in one place. Extremely useful! Especially if you have woken up at 4:30 A.M. on a Saturday morning, unable to stop thinking about paint colors. Not that that would ever happen to me. That would be totally weird. Let's not talk about it.

All right, well, then. Wish us luck! There will be before & after pictures provided we're not living on the street! (I really wish I'd had my camera when I went to the see the apartment in its totally trashed state. MAN was it NUTS.) My mother always said the west side was the best side. Time to find out!


19 October 2005

Gah!


Send us good apartment vibes today! Let this person not be trying to rip us off like the person yesterday! Let this apartment actually exist! Let the rent not mysteriously jump $150 after we've applied! Let them say we can move in a day early since we absolutely have to be out of here on the 31st, although really at this point I am totally ok with sleeping in a truck with all my belongings! Seriously!


14 October 2005

It Will Never Stop Raining


Ever, at all, I think.
Also I think we will never find an apartment, but I understand I am probably wrong.


9 October 2005

Prospects Thus Far: Bleak!


Apartment #1: Located shadily on 50th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues. Too Far West! (even though the ad said "40s and 9th Ave.") Decent bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen, but blink and you'll miss the living room. Or put your foot through the TV while sitting on the couch. Who knows. PASS!

Apartment #2: Located pleasantly on 45th between 8th and 9th Avenues. Acceptable! Living room ok, kitchen smallish but set up nicely in relation to the living room. Many cabinets and closets! What's that tall closet in the kitchen? Oh, it's the shower. Hmm. And the bedroom is just sort of a narrow hall with a built-in bed on the way to the (other half of the) bathroom. Oh. PASS!

Apartment #3: Located acceptably somewhere, 51st Street, I forget, whatever. Boring, carpet instead of hardwood, hall-like kitchen, feels like a hotel. Bedroom windows "look out onto" brick wall two feet away. PASS!

I can only imagine what wonders next week will bring.


3 October 2005

Apples & Pumpkins & Tequila Sunrises


Here is how it went down.

So that was the birthday. Rock!! Meanwhile, we are seriously doing the apartment-search thing now, although we haven't seen any places yet. I suppose this means I should seriously start doing the packing thing... very... soon... now? Eh.

Squid keeps unrolling the toilet paper and nesting in it. Pigeon keeps whining and falling down. I keep going to work and getting paid. Wish us luck with this apartment business, and maybe soon I'll have pictures to post of a place with a DOOR. Imagine!