Apartment Hunting

Oh the wonderful joys of apartment hunting, or lack there of. My god what a stressful day I had. First off for those of you that don't know, I have this irrational phobia of calling people and places I don't know. I don't know what it is, but I have had it since early childhood. Many a phone calls to places of business (mostly videogame and movie stores) were pawned off to my little bro. I remember he always used to say to me "what are you going to do when were older and you have to call these places on your own?" Well first I would try to see if I could find someone else to do it for me, then I guess I would bite the bullet and do it.

Well I had to bite the bullet on this one, seeing how my future roommate is making this whole ordeal more difficult, leading me to wonder about his commitment. Still this is one giant learning experience and let me say I have been learning a lot in this painful process. I started my search for the perfect place to live around DeKalb on the internet. Which as helpful as it is, isn't really helpful. Most of the sites that I came across don't list prices or availability and they want' you to call. Calling places is my Kryptonite, it weekend me and makes me want to put things off. I did manage to work past this and call several places, to which I learned a tentative late December early January move in would be very difficult to find. With just a few leads and numbers on a peace of paper, I managed to work out a date to get my lazy apartment seeking friend, to come with me to DeKalb, (where he already attends school so it would be much easier for him to check whats available then me, but thats only my oppinion) to look for places.

At first I thought he was going to pull his usual ditch me routine, or play sick, but to my relief he didn't. When we made our way to DeKalb and investigated my leads, two of which I determined were way to far away from school to be living, the other wouldn't be available in our time frame, and the last was out of our price range. We then took up randomly driving around the campus area looking for signs the read "for rent." This actually proved to be the most effective way of canvasing the area because several of the apartments we looked at didn't have web sites disclosing them. Yes I know, what kind of cheap place doesn't have a web site? A very cheap place is the answer. This approach also gave us an exact feel of where we were in relationship to the campus.

We did manage to narrow down our search to two places. The first place is off of Normal Road just south of Ridge road. Its a little bit aways from the main campus, about a mile, but it has a bus stop right by it, and the strait shoot down Normal Rd to school would make a great bike ride to my classes. The place was rather spacious at about 800sqft with two bathrooms. Now the place was by no means nice, in fact it was kind of run down. The carpet in the hallways was coming up, the outer door locks were broken, Which the lady who showed us the place pointed out, " theres no crime here the only reason we don't fix em is the college kids just keep breaking them." All the utilities are included except for electricity for ony $670 a month. Another bonus it allows pets, well I don't have a pet but my buddy has a cat.

The second place is a bit different, its located at the corner of Annie Glidden Road and Lincoln Highway. Its a tall apartment building about 12 stories, and its built like a box. the place gave me a very claustrophobic feal. As soon as you enter, your in a small living room type space and then directly to the left and right of that are the bedrooms. No hallways, everything is on top of each other. There is only one bathroom and the Kitchen is incredibly tiny. I would compare it to a dorm suite. The location is ideal, its within a five minutes walk from Dusauble Hall where all my classes are at, and its across the street from Molly's bar. Not that I care but that seemed to be a big plus to my roommate. All the utilities are included with the exception of electricity. ON the down side, its isolated from all thats happening. Its out where nothing is going on, unless you frequent the bar. We also have to move in right away, no waiting till end of December, its a first come first serve basis. The biggest downside is the place wants an unGodly $1800 down, first and last months rent, plus a months rent deposit. I geuss thats meant to keep the poor and riff raff out.

So now to decide which we want, I'm leaning toward the crappier place, in the not so nice area, not that the area is bad, it just isn't nice. Also its bigger layout, gives the feeling of a place where you would be able to get away from an aggravated roommate. However I liked the other place but it was just to small for me. and at only a $25 difference in rent, I am more likely to go for the bigger place.