So, I'm sad. My lovely home is to be my home no longer. My roomies and I have been renting a house that we all love very much. It's in a nice, peaceful neighborhood, has bright blue pool surrounded by terra cotta tiles and two dressing rooms labeled 'Guys' and 'Dolls', lovely rustling trees that seem to snuggle up the house to be friendly, and of course, the 'Swiss-Family-eat-your-heart-out' tree house. Our house has floor to ceiling windows opening to an amazing view, grape vine draped porch, and most of all, the friendly feeling that the house likes you back. I'm quite sure our house will miss us, too. But the owner wants to come back and live in it. I can't blame him. And it's his house, he can do that. But if you want to depress yourself very quickly, the best way to do it is to go shopping for an apartment in El Cajon. To explain to non-locals, El Cajon is a spanish word for the 'the drawer' or 'the box', and its a fairly actuate description of the square valley, surrounded by ridges on all sides. The middle is dotted with shops and the rest is checkerboarded with modest family homes (think two bedroom, one story, ranch style with one tree squished onto a tiny plot) and apartments. The houses on the surrounding hills (where I live now) are the nice houses, with long shady driveways and big lots and views. And everything you've heard about the cost of housing in southern California is absolutely true. In Alburquerque, New Mexico, a one bedroom apartment set you back $350. In Minnesota, we rented a two bedroom, one and a half bath townhouse with two car garage for $750. Here, a one bedroom, one bath house was considered a steal for $375,000 and sold in two days on the market. So, unless I want to round up some roomies (quickly) and hope to find another sucker willing to rent a house for far less than it's worth again, I'm looking at apartments. I'm trying to spend no more than $800 a month on a one bedroom apartment, and that selection is limited. JR and I viewed a bunch this weekend.
Some things that were actually said to me by various apartment managers.
(glance at my thighs) "We have an excellent fitness room."
(chipper voice)"We here at Bella Vista are working on becoming a Crime Free property. And we're almost there!"
"So lets pop in to the fitness room. Nice, huh?" (same apartment manager)
"We here at Casa Del Sol Apartments are very pet friendly. As long as you cruelly subject your cat to an unnecessarily surgery to remove his only natural defense system and leave him fearful and emotionally scarred for life, and give us a deposit of $200. (ok, she just said 'declawed', but that's what I heard.)
"So the nice thing about our fitness room is that it's connected to our laundry room, so you can pop a load in and then work out. Isn't that a great idea?"(same SOB apartment manager)
"We aren't finished fumigating the apartment so I'm not going in. I'll just talk loudly from the doorway. Feel free to go in yourselves!"
"You can see from how the fire damage is fairly minimal on that unit on the other side that the fire department responds very quickly to us!"
(standing on bare, unfinished concrete floors) "..... and carpet is one the options we offer for an additional price."
(looking at me suspiciously) "You're not allowed to bring any known felons onto the property unless they've been approved by me."
"So, what did you think of the fitness room?"(SOB's receptionist)
Some things that were actually said to me by various apartment managers.
(glance at my thighs) "We have an excellent fitness room."
(chipper voice)"We here at Bella Vista are working on becoming a Crime Free property. And we're almost there!"
"So lets pop in to the fitness room. Nice, huh?" (same apartment manager)
"We here at Casa Del Sol Apartments are very pet friendly. As long as you cruelly subject your cat to an unnecessarily surgery to remove his only natural defense system and leave him fearful and emotionally scarred for life, and give us a deposit of $200. (ok, she just said 'declawed', but that's what I heard.)
"So the nice thing about our fitness room is that it's connected to our laundry room, so you can pop a load in and then work out. Isn't that a great idea?"(same SOB apartment manager)
"We aren't finished fumigating the apartment so I'm not going in. I'll just talk loudly from the doorway. Feel free to go in yourselves!"
"You can see from how the fire damage is fairly minimal on that unit on the other side that the fire department responds very quickly to us!"
(standing on bare, unfinished concrete floors) "..... and carpet is one the options we offer for an additional price."
(looking at me suspiciously) "You're not allowed to bring any known felons onto the property unless they've been approved by me."
"So, what did you think of the fitness room?"(SOB's receptionist)
2 Comments:
Thanks for loaning me a bit of your optimisim. My own waned considerably today when woman tried to sell me on an apartment because "its right above a tattoo parlor and bar!" Great.
And my leg-less fish?
And while 'addicted to love' is a fine song, I imagine hearing it repeated too often would not be pleasant. Once while I lived in Minniesota, this radio station played 'Hit me with your best shot' by what's-her-name while I was in the shower EVER DAY FOR TWO WEEKS. Now whenever I hear that song, I think of peach colored tiles and aloe vera shampoo. But you're right, I'll find someplace nice to live, and I'll fix it up cute, but I hate this in-between, 'I don't know where I'll be living next month' phase. I'll start to think of all the good things about my new place once I know where that is. In fact, the place above the bar is right off of Broadway, so I'll be able to say that I'm 'now appearing off-broadway'. I'll feel cool and actress-ish. Or another complex is on Sunshine St, which means I could sing, "I'm walking on sunshine, oooooooooh-oooh, and don't it feel good" until the neighbors complain. That could be fun.
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