My first mission here is apartment-hunting. I have to find a place to live as soon as possible, otherwise, I will be homeless because the place where I'm staying does not allow me to extend my stay.
So, I took off to walk around the town, looking for vacancies. My apartment should be preferably close to the campus. If it's furnished and equipped with washer/dryer and the Internet and the rent includes all utilities would be perfect. The rent, of course, must be reasonable. Maybe around $450 or so? Nope, the rent would be $500, but it's OK as long as it includes utilities.
I went up and down the streets and found a few vacancies. A flier of one of them said the rent is $575 including all utilities and the unit has washer/dryer. It sounded good though the rent was expensive. I peeped in the empty unit ... Yeah, it has washer/dryer. That's good. Without lights, it looked bleak and uncomfortable. It's not furnished. It's on the first floor just next to the stairs, and that means it would be noisy because people climb up and down the stairs. And the first floor doesn't seem safe. OK, move on.
Unfortunately, today is a national holiday, and almost all business including real estate agencies are closed. Tired of walking ... I realized the town is quite big if you walk around ... I decided to walk back to the place where I'm staying before I fall apart.
On the way home, I saw a "Rent Now" banner on the wall of a brown apartment. Let's check this out. There was the general manager and the on-site manager working. The GM said there were three vacancies on the first floor and showed me all. The rooms were old, actually 24 years old, but looked clean. $550 is quite expensive for me, but it includes water, sewer and garbage. No electric?! Damn, electric must be the most expensive utility. The good thing of this apartment is it's furnished.
Thinking back, I might have been too exhausted to recall my conditions to rent an apartment. I signed the paper on the spot. Oh, well, now I'm praying my decision wouldn't be wrong.
