Apartment Hunting

Report: Oct 14-16, 2010

The hunt was on. With the options we saw yesterday it was time to get serious. We walked the Downtown Halifax area from 9am to 6pm for two days. The selection of places was so sad. We would find a place we loved but it would be out of our price range. We would see a price range we liked but the neighborhood would not be what we wanted. Since 40,000 college students returned to town in September, hunting in October for a place was beginning to feel like a game of roulette. We refused to be discouraged and continued our search into the weekend.

The first place we tried on Saturday looked good online but after the last two days of searching it was difficult to keep our hopes up. We called anyway and the landlord said we could take a peak at the place since the maintenance man was working on the unit. We figured what the heck, our options were getting slim and a two bedroom place near Halifax proper was sounding pretty good. At first we passed the place not realizing it was a 6 unit apartment complex above a salon, a tailor, a yoga studio and a pie makers shop. We doubled back and let ourselves in through a stairway to the units above the businesses. We talked to a wacky maintenance guy who told us a bit about the building. The landlord liked our prospects over the phone so he came over and talked to us for a bit too. Seems we made a good impression and he offered us the place on the spot. We asked if we could think about it over lunch but I had no doubt Goose was ready to fill out an application.

Over lunch we talked about how it was in a good area, had a bus stop out front, a lake across the street and a city recreation center on the other side of the street. We started discussing what classes we could take and which bus routes worked best. Once you start making plans you get that fear you might not get the place so we called Charlie, the landlord, right away. He was very happy we called and had us fill out an application, then said we could move in on Monday if it would help get us out of our hotel earlier. Seems he wasn't worried about our references. I told Goose it's because he thinks my dimples are charming! After signing off on a year lease it all just clicked which is an amazing feeling. Below is a picture of our building, I'm currently standing on the shore of Chocolate Lake across the street:

Just to give you an idea about the place. It's a two bedroom, one bathroom unit. Included is water, heat, garbage, and one parking space for $675 a month. I personally feel one room is a bit small to be called a bedroom but it works great as an office space too. Just about everything we need is within walking or bus distance.

We had a place! Whoo hoo! Then the realization hit that all of our possessions were in a storage unit in California. Hmmm.....

I believe there comes a time in every adult life when you realize how much stuff your parents own. You know, STUFF. All the stuff you took for granted: furniture, curtains, towels, dishes, sewing machine, power tools, etc. Now you're on your own and think, hey, all that stuff costs a lot of MY money. What you don't realize is your parents have accumulated that stuff over a long period of time, spreading the cost for all of it along the way. Well, Goose and I have been together a long time and had already had that moment. We had rented a house for 7 years before this and had filled it with possessions that were near and dear to our hearts. Now we were looking at getting some items for our new place when most of them would be duplicates of what we already spent our hard earned money on. Trying to ship our items here is very expensive and if we do it all at once we can get a tax break since Goose is a returning Canadian citizen. No matter what, it will take some time and planning to get it here. I'm also not ready to sleep on the floor until our items arrive. Seems we'll have to do a bit of shopping for some necessities.

Now let me tell you, getting Goose to go shopping for a few things is easy. You just tell him there is a Best Buy, Fry's, Future Shop, etc. in the same shopping plaza as the store you want to go to and then get a rendezvous time back at the car. Getting him to power shop for what I feel are the necessities of an apartment before we returned our rental car in 4 days, that is a different story entirely.

Eagle Out