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!