A post about apartments.
Maybe in that order. Or maybe not.
In the last weeks my mind was reeling with pros and cons and amenities and price points, OH MY! Yes we were apartment shopping. Trying to get a leg up on finding a great apartment. We thought that it is usually a 60 day notice. However now we understand only about half require 60 day notices, others are 30 days. So at that point do we wait to see what comes up 30 days before we want to sign a lease or go with a 60 day notice now? Oh decisions decisions.
Some background on my psycho mind. Every once in a while my mind goes bonkers and shuts down. The smallest tiniest decisions elude me. They turn into huge turn of events that will forever change my life. I usually figure out it’s going on when I break down and cry over what to have for supper or what candy bar I want at the store. No, I’m completely serious. There are warning signs I’m sure but this is the one that clues me in.
But in apartment hunting I really didn’t have problems with making decisions on ones I didn’t like. It kind of boiled down to: do I feel safe here. Cuz bubba I’ma gonna be livin’ here all alone for a whole whopping month! Yes, yes, I said that with a straight face. I’m 32 and hate being alone at nite. Afraid of the dark, claustrophobic and kinda neurotic doesn’t mix well. Oh and I have a vivid imagination.
Back to the safety issue. I fell in love (on paper) with an apartment complex near where I live now, Anchor Pointe. The three stories have three different price points. We viewed the third floor and I loved it. What I didn’t love was that we couldn’t look at a 1st floor. That was the one we wanted at $525. The others had decks that we just didn’t care about and were more money. Also this way a 1st floor is more energy efficient in the summer being partly in the ground. I liked it but didn’t feel overly safe.
We took a look at Timberland but for the price it didn’t have enough amenities. My friend Mel lives there and really likes it but it didn’t jump out at us. Veto by both of us. Next was Village Green. It had the amenities but when we walked in the room with the intercom it was tiny and half under the stairs. Each floor had a closed door. And being claustrophobic I hated that. Being neurotic I thought strangers were lurking behind every door. (Waiting to take my pizza, cat food and shampoo from Target I’d be hauling up. Oh and maybe my purse but as there’s no money in there, the joke’s on the robber.) Veto by me.
I called Country Acres where I used to live with Amy and Mindy in Sartell. No openings that she knew of. Keep calling, maybe something will open up she said. Then I called the first apartment, Anchor Pointe. Nothing was coming open for April. Then she said the words that would turn me off from these apartments: ‘But we have evictions coming up and there are always lease jumpers.’ Oh hi, yes sign me up for those, they sound awesome! Yikes. I happen to know that no one is perfect and no apartment complex is either. My mom happens to make a living as a property manager. So without knowing names or direct details (in some cases I’m very glad of that) because my mom is a professional and doesn’t tattle or gossip, I happen to know these things happen. But for the apartment manager to come out and tell me that wasn’t too appealing. Veto by me.
Back to square one. The cheap places aren’t cutting it. Plus they don’t have the amenities we want. Fine, Village Green had an in unit washer and dryer for 600 (cheap for that) but it also took up half the second bedroom’s closet housing a compact washer and dryer. Not much closet space when you come down to it.
Then came Pointe West and West Stonehill. Saturday morning while Chris was working I got a call from a girl at Pointe West saying she talked to Chris and he pointed her in my direction. (He was working at Game stop and couldn’t talk.) So I set up a time for the following Tuesday nite. I had been looking at so many apartments online, in books and calling around that I had about 20 pages of notes for all of them. Not exaggerating. So I didn’t remember much about them. And since we were looking at those I set up a time to look at two other apartments in the same price range, Park Meadows and West Stonehill.
Park Meadows was up for Monday nite. We got there at different times and I liked their waiting area. Big comfy couches and a tv. But what’s with the small kitchen in the hallway? Weird. When Chris got there the girl was making strange faces at the people who came in while he filled out paperwork. She had a slightly haughty air about her. We left the office and I found out it wasn’t a waiting area but a community room. Kinda small compared to others. Their pool and gym was a completely separate building. Granted it was in the middle of all the buildings but they were pretty far apart. The apartment was nice, but nothing overly special. Then we found out about laundry. It was 1.50 to wash and a 1.50 to dry. 25 cents more than most places. AND the biggest turn off. It was a card system. You have to buy cards with cash at the office to use the washer and dryer. Ick. Veto by both of us.
I’ll come back to Pointe West, the apartment we toured on Tuesday but on to Wednesday's tour, West Stonehill. The office building was way back behind the residential buildings and we both had a hard time finding it. That building also had the community room (this time a nice large sized room) and the fitness area. I honestly can’t remember if it had a pool or not. I believe so. We drove to the buildings to look because they were farther back. The first had a nice quarter bath next to the walk in closet. Ah, very nice. I fell in love with their light fixture in the dining area, their flooring and cabinets. Oh so slick and nice looking. Not standard apartment colors either. Their laundry was a stacking w/d combo and they had a nice little linen closet. Also for a minimum of 2 nights for $40 a nite guests can rent a suite with internet and everything. Sophisticated! However once again the fitness center and community room were far away. Also they charged pet rent and we don’t like that. Pet deposits are great and needed but unless my cat gets a job there should b e no need for pet rent. They aren’t human.
I want to take a moment to point something out. If you do a search on the internet or open up the phone book under apartments you’ll see something. A lot of apartments are named the same. You could generate an apartment name from two or more words in this list: point, garden, view, north, park, south, pine, hill, hillside, hillcrest, country, grand, place, ridge, oak, west, river and wood. In the St Cloud area there are 6 apartments that start with Oak, 6 that start with North, 6 that start with Pine, 7 that start with West and so on. Oak Garden, Park Garden, Garden Square, Pine Pointe, Pointe West, West Stonehill, Hillside, Hillcrest, Hillcrest on the River, Windsong, Windsor, Birchwood, Woodhaven, and the two that makes me laugh: Edgewood Court and Edjwood Estates. Huh?
Anyway back to Pointe West. It really is on par with West Stonehill in amenities and space. However where W.S. had a compact washer and dryer this one had a room with full sized w/d with shelving. This also had two bathrooms. Yay the cat gets his own bathroom! Oh wait, fine we then have a guest bathroom. Um, another bathroom to clean? I don’t like cleaning one. (ask Amy) Still it is more for the same money. No pet rent and less pet deposit. Just a few feet from our apartment is a trash chute, so no more going outside to get rid of trash! And unlike the other places the community room and fitness center are all in the same building as the apartment.
Well you can tell we picked Pointe West. They are letting us move in April 24th and signing the lease for May 1st. All without charging us extra for moving in sooner. Oh this will be nice. Only thing is we have to give out more deposit. Oh well it’s like a savings right? So now all we have to decide is first floor or third floor? 1st floor is actually more like the second because of the “underground” parking. (it’s on a hill so our side has the hill) But we could jump around all we want because the floor is the garage ceiling. However if we went with the 3rd floor we could jerry-rig a satellite dish to face the south. According to Chris it is much cheaper and his hatred of Charter is mind-blowing. Though I love the idea of the 1st floor apartment because I believe in the summer It will be much cooler. I guess this is something we’ll have to do some research for and some converstaions about.
In the meantime I’m just excited we chose and got an apartment. Now all we have to do is go through our stuff, pack it all, move it over and unpack it all. Oh yeah piece of cake, right?!
