Looking for an apartment is one exhausting endeavor. I have now been doing it for almost a month, and sadly, I am not that much closer to having a place to live than I was when I began.
That's not entirely true; right now, I'm at the mercy of yet another landlord to check our applications, and I will consider it an official act of God if we get this place, not because we're not nice people, but because this process is ridiculous.
That's what I've become, like someone on a dating show. "Please pick me; I'm nice. You won't regret it, I swear."
While waiting on the landlord last night, the current tenants said, "Yeah, he's pretty picky. A ton of people have seen the place, and he hasn't really liked any of them."
I really kind of wish they hadn't told me that, because I then turned into a nervous wreck when he got there, laughing at every bad joke he made and batting my eyelashes when it seemed appropriate.
Did he like us? I have no idea. I assume so, since he urged us to give him our applications that night, before he went out of town, so it's really not in my hands anymore.
Maybe I'm naive here, but what happened to the days of seeing an available apartment listed, going to see it, and saying, "Yes, I'd like to live here. Here's my deposit."
I have lived in about six different apartments in my adult life, and I have never, ever had this much trouble literally convincing people to let me pay them rent.
And that's the thing, we're paying them. It's gotten to the point where I feel like I'm asking them for a free service.
Philadelphia landlords have the luxury of doing this, because real estate is a high commodity. There are so many people moving here and living here, that a landlord can be overly picky, and I don't fault them for that. I understand they want the best situation for themselves, too, I just don't think I've felt this out of my element since the first few weeks after I moved here.
But my friend and I are soldiering on, hopeful that someone will take pity on us, even though we're not a married couple (this isn't Massachusetts), because, apparently, married couples are the most favorable people to rent to.
So, not only do we have to deal with the House of Horrors that is sometimes the life of a single girl, we get shafted for apartments for the same reason.
When I used to say, "That's not fair" when I was little, my dad would invariably reply, "Life's not fair," and never has that seemed more maddeningly true.
No comments:
Post a Comment