I can't believe it, but I think I'm moving again. No wait, I KNOW I'm moving again. I'm just in shock.
Each time I go through the process of trying to rent an apartment (4 times total), I am reminded of the horrific craziness of the rental market in the San Francisco area. I'm about to hit the end of a 1.5-day process of: see the apartment, decide we like the apartment, and expose all information about credit and rental history in order to rent the apartment. Is there time to really ponder the situation? Hells no! In this market, you have to pounce when the pouncing is good.
I have to say, though, I react to apartment hunting now much as I did in the autumn of 1997, when Spice and I were essentially living out of her Toyota Tercel for weeks whilst going to open house after open house, hoping to be the one amongst the 50 applicants to be accepted as renters. By the 5th showing, we had our routine down - wearing Gap casual clothing and wussy purses and carrying neat folders containing credit reports, reference lists, and bios. It was ... how shall I say ... SHITTASTIC!!! Spice learned to drop the word "Stanford" as much as possible and I learned to wear lipstick. There were tears and anxiety and yelling and Nancy. Remember Nancy, Spice? Eventually we ended up landing a place with a very nice/repsonsive landlord but few ammenities. We called it the Shit Hole. Enough said.
Anyhoo, back to the present and I find myself having a similar physiological response this time around - despite the fact that I'm moving to the peninsula (an easier market for renters) and have a solid credit history and real job. Thank god I'm not trying to do this in San Francisco again. My roomie reported inquiring about a place a day after it was listed on Craigslist only to find that the owner already had 50 applications, half completed onsite with promises of paying $200/month over the asking price. Crap!!!
We're submitting our application today for an adorable 2br/1ba small-but-quaint place. I hope this will be it, but I won't be surprised if it isn't. ESPECIALLY if they contact my last SF landlord who was CRAZY ... like, literally NUTS.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
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11 comments:
Holy cow.
It's times like this I'm glad I live in my parents' basement. Although I don't think the market is quite as insane here.
I think that experience has scarred me for life - I'm already worried about moving a year from now, and I don't even know if I have any reason to move yet! Somehow the super-easy "Hey, wanna live in this very cheap and nice house in Madison?" experience still hasn't overridden the memories of sitting on B.Crowe's floor and yelling "F*CK SAN FRANCISCO" over and over before returning to the Tercel, where J.Po had to ride with a lamp between her legs so everything would fit. Or the part where I had to get a driver's license with my work address on it because we had been homeless for so long. Or anything having to do with the crazy, crazy landlord.
Congrats on the new place, though! If you get it, that is... It sounds like it was at the very least a quicker process this time around.
That part about the lamp between my legs (Spice's comment) is no joke. Spice also had to pack containers of Cup-a-Soup around my body because there was nowhere else to put them.
I want to hear crazy landlord stories!
Cup of soup! I hadn't even read this before we talked about that last night!
I think the crazy landlord can be summed up by her accusing J.Po of stuffing used diapers down the drain. A curious idea, particularly given that J.Po has no children!
The landlord also said that I make her blood boil. That offended me at the time but makes me laugh heartily now.
I still can't get my head around WHY we insisted on keeping the Cup'a'Soup.
Used diapers. Ha ha ha! Maybe she thought they were yours, Spice.
Yeah, neither of used much cup-a-soup! The chocolate bar that melted into my eggcrate mattress pad made more sense.
And for the record, I wasn't living in SF anymore when the diaper incident occurred!
How about the time (also after I left) when the landlord tried to convince you that 45+ degrees was a 'normal' temperature for a refrigerator?
Wait, was Crazy Landlord the apartment that you lived at the times I visited? It was a very cute apartment, if I remember correctly. Too bad about the Crazy Person. (Diapers - ha.) J.Po., maybe she thought you had a pet monkey.
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