Fees, Deposits, and Obstacles

Apartment hunting is very tiresome. When it is going to be your first apartment and home for the next few years, it is easy to wake up at 9am with excitement written all over your face.

After tour number 3 or 4, the excitement quickly turns into confusion and quite probably exhaustion. At that point, you kind of just want to walk into the office and be like "listen, we've been around the world already so save the sales pitch and just take us on the tour please. If we are even remotely interested then we can discuss prices." The only problem with that, other than it being extremely rude, is that you can't take the salesman out of these people (especially when they have a million awards adorning the walls of their office).

A major problem with living in this city in comparison to where brother unlucky is, is that the cost of living is higher. This makes it an ideal environment for the student/school affiliated housing. They get you with dorm style housing that usually includes a $130 cap on electricity included in the rent, a fully furnished apartment, and a shuttle that runs from the complex to the campus. Sounds pretty convenient doesn't it? Well it is.

Affiliated housing caught me in their trap last January. They ran these "specials" where administrative fees and application fees were waived, and the "if you sign up by Jan 31 you only pay $545 per month" deal. My three roommates and I were sold on the convenience of the place. This included everything from location to pricing. We were also wrongly convinced that since we all sat in the office together & signed the leases we would get a 4 x 4 together.

Aside from that false information & the fact that I live with 3 hermits who manage to double the electric cap every month, I knew it would only be temporary and prepared myself for my junior year where I would be determined find a place (preferably non affiliated) to stay for the remainder of my college life here in Borelando.

Based on the hunting over this 4-day weekend I have come to realise that finding what I intially wanted is a problem. I feel like settling down in a 4 x 4 is not really settling down especially if it is anything like where I live--5 billion buildings, too many residents, and with no kind of at home feeling-- and was looking for a 2 x 2 or at most 3 x 3 which I could furnish and call my own. The problems there are that neither of the roommates I had in mind drive or own cars. This forces us to kind of stick with student housing so they can take advantage of the shuttle. We eventually found some very nice 2 bedroom apartments for good prices, but the shuttle is the standing obstacle with them all--along with the millions of fees pertaining to utilities, cable, and internet.

My personal obstacle with a 4 bedroom is that I do not have 3 friends to live with so if I was going to go into another 4 bedroom blindly why don't I just stay right where I am? Sure my roommates are in a world of their own, but I've lived here for a few months already and it is not absolutely terrible. Furthermore, two of them are seniors so if all goes as planned they should be getting out of here soon.

Sometimes I guess you just have to suck it up & settle for what you can get.