As a new college graduate, and soon to be graduate student (aka-semi adult) one of the first major life changes that presents itself to 20 somethings like myself is finding non-parent or university owned housing. Most college students either commute or dorm during their undergrad years, however I have never been “typical”. I was lucky to have the ability to live in my own house (read: property owned, but not occupied by my parents) in Wilkes-Barre for almost my entire undergraduate career. That is, until November of 2006 when my two roommates and I were instantly transformed from hip cats with cool digs to homeless vagrants by an awful house fire. Luckily for me my grandmother lived in close proximity to my school and she allowed me to live with her until the end of the school.
My time in the crazy chaos that was “Grandmaland” provided enough material for a full-length written work that I hope to finish sometime in the next year. Had Grandma’s health not forced her into a center for assisted living I may have even gathered enough material for an entire Tyler Perry type series. So, since Grandmaland closed its doors and I did not want to consider moving back in with my parents I was forced to start the great apartment hunt of 2007.
Now, you’d think that in a college town real estate would not be hard to come by, especially in the late July/early August time period. And you’d be partially correct. There were a fair amount of ads in the local papers and I managed to overcome my aversion to making telephone calls (I’m a switchboard operator part time, go figure) and made the connections.
Or at least I tried.
Over the course of two weeks I called no less than 20 different landlords, many multiple times, and only amounted to about 8 connections. I’m not sure why these people put their advertisements in the paper when they don’t want to answer the phone, but that’s what happened in more than half of the places I contacted.
When I finally got in contact with landlords I ran into a problem when it came time to explain my living situation. My situation happens to be unusual. My best friend Zach had been living with me for two years before our house caught fire and I was hoping to find a place that would allow him to live with me while he finishes out his last semester. Since he only has about 6 months left, he was not interested in signing (and breaking) a year long lease. I however, am not planning on moving again until I’m finished with my degree (roughly two years). Therefore I was on the market for a place that had A) Enough room for both he and I to live comfortably, B) A rent low enough so that I could afford it by myself when he leaves and C) A landlord who would allow that.
As I contacted different landlords I scheduled appointments to come and check out the estates. When I arrived I made sure to check for adequate space, the distance from the school, note the monthly cost of rent and ask all the important utilities questions (Is heat included? What are my other expenses outside of the rent? Is there off street parking?). After seeing a few possibilities that were both in my price, location, and spacial range I narrowed it down to 3 possible places. After a very interesting discussion with a landlord who would not rent to two unmarried people of different genders because, as he said, “Wilkes-Barre is a dangerous city, you don’t know who’s a pimp,” I decided I wanted a little more respect and a little less creepy landlord and cut my decision down to two apartments.
Having eliminated the aforementioned property where not only was I not allowed to live with my roommate, but I wasn’t even allowed to have sleepovers, I was ready to call my other two estates and express interest.
The first place I called was one of which was the very first apartment that I looked at. I really liked it, having now seen the rest of what was offered to me, and called the landlord back to express my interest. Unfortunately, unknown to me, he was still running an ad for it, and had upped his price. A few days later I found out that he was going to go with another tenant, most likely one whom he had quoted a higher rent. Here is where I learned the most valuable lesson of apartment hunting: Don’t wait too long to make an offer. Luckily that same day about an hour later landlord of the last property on my “yes” list called me back to let me know that I could have the place if I was interested. Of course I agreed to take the apartment and ta-da, I am now the happy new tenant of my own co-ed, non-grandmaland apartment.