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[aslant]

we went to see an apartment last night.

it was an utter shitheap. rickety, slanted floors, low ceilings, carpeted, narrow and dark. a "computer room" that was a linoleum-floored hole half the size of a bathroom. also, still inhabited by surly tenants and filled with moving-out garbage that we had to step around. yuck. as soon as we got back to the sidewalk and out of earshot, we started laughing. i could have said "no thanks, not interested" the moment we walked up to the apartment building, sometimes you can just tell.

we have two, maybe three appointments this weekend to see bigger, better places. i'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Comments

[featherandjaw.livejournal.com]

was it one of the apartments you listed in your last post? too bad!

when i was apartment-hunting for the first time, there were so many apartments i walked by and didn't even go into (i was not fastidious about keeping appointments) once i saw what the block looked like ("i thought this was in park slope. ha, west west west park slope...." and similar)

[aslant.livejournal.com]

it was #4.

i think my mistake was in assuming that guy was young since he sounded vaguely foreign & uncertain, like a student or something. but instead of a nice honest guy, he was a slum-lord! it was immediately obvious that he had no idea how shitty his building looked...there were plenty of well-kept, respectable houses on the street, but the stairs were slanting and the boards were loose, it was obvious they'd been that way for quite some time. he half-heartedly said that the inside stairwell would be cleaned out...the carpet was filthy and it sort of smelled mouse-y. somerville didn't have the nickname slummerville for no reason, i guess.

that's smart about not keeping appointments. sometimes i have a hard time telling from the outsides, because at first glance i definitely would have turned away from our current apartment, but it turned out to be very well kept inside, shiny floors and all.

[featherandjaw.livejournal.com]

it can definitely be hard to tell sometimes! our current building is pretty ugly from the outside, and the lobby/foyer is rather grim. i guess my calls were mainly based on neighborhood (i.e. knowing i wouldn't want to live right by a noisy smelly road full of car-repair centers) or else just plain nervousness (i was apartment-hunting alone, for the the first time ever, while still recovering from major depression, so often i just couldn't bring myself to knock on someone's door, especially if i'd gotten lost and arrived late or something)

[aslant.livejournal.com]

i think your building has a nice foyer! it at least looks lived-in, with all those notes on the door, and it seemed well-lit.

one of the places this weekend is directly next to I-93 AND the notorious Mystic Parkway, which in parts is lined with public housing projects. it's such a good price, though, so if it's half as good as they say, it might be worth it, especially if it's just a block or two in the right direction. funny how such short distances make such a big difference.

[featherandjaw.livejournal.com]

i guess i dislike it because (1) it smells awful when they've just dragged the trash through it from the airshaft out to the curb, (2) the door makes the most wretched wrenching/scraping sound when closed as it rakes against the floor, although this has recently been fixed, (3) it has all those big white walls and no love, (4) the ceiling leaks sometimes and is stained...

a block or two can definitely make a big difference! good luck :)

[bruisesroses.livejournal.com]

[aslant.livejournal.com]

thank you :)

my favorite game i'm playing now is imagining snappy comebacks for the poor building owner so he knew the truth of our impressions. everything i could say sounds utterly privileged/snobby/bitchy/mean but it would feel soooo good. but why piss in the pond? the only positive would be that he could list its characteristics more truthfully, to avoid more pointless showings. plus, my outrage is more about the (totally imagined) insult that we would be considered to have such low standards, which is incredibly classist of me. oh well. such is truth.