The Great Apartment Search

Immediately upon returning home from our vacation we had to start searching for apartments in New York.  We wanted to get something locked down, so we didn't have to stress out about it too much.  The anxiety of finding a good apartment in the city was really weighing on our minds.

So we started looking on craigslist and other various sites on line for available apartments, and spent two miserable days calling people trying to set up various appointments for apartments that seemed totally nice online.  Several of the apartments were also listed as no fee apartments (where you don't have to pay a broker fee).  Fools that we were, we believed these postings, however, when you show up at the actual apartment you are told that should you wish to rent this apartment, a very hefty broker fee is required.

Anyway, we woke up before the sun on Wednesday, rode the train into the district and caught the bus up to New York.  So basically, by the time we got there on Wednesday we were tired, and already behind schedule.  Not a great start to the day.

However, we pushed on running up and down the Upper West Side to various appointments.  It was really a horrible day.  I had heard people talking bad about moving to NYC before, but I refused to believe that it was going to be that bad.  I was convinced that if I had a good attitude it wouldn't be bad.  I was naive, and I was wrong.  It was horrible.  By Wednesday night, we had seen probably 10 apartments, all of them horrible, and we were exhausted, I had blisters on all my feet.  We were very discouraged.

We had planned on going to the East side the next day to check out apartments over there.  But we were so discouraged that we scrapped that plan, rallied ourselves and decided to stay on the West Side like we had been planning.  We made some more calls, set up some more appointments and headed out.

First stop, Absolut Bagels, for delicious, homemade bagels and cream cheese.  It was just what we needed to fortify us against the day.  At the start of the day I already had more than 4 bandaids on each foot.  After going into several buildings and asking for the leasing agent, and getting very little information we met Don, for our only appointment of the day.  His company was recommended by Joseph's firm, and he only charged you a low fee for the apartment so we went.  We were hopeful, but only because we wanted the misery to end.

And, we hit the jackpot. We found an good sized, but by no means large, apartment with a dishwasher and nice kitchen appliances, in a small elevator building.  After looking at so many horrible places it was like arriving in paradise.

We told the guy we would take it and then ran downtown to their office in midtown, to sign the paperwork and fork over our life savings (I kid, sorta).

They weren't to pleased with the fact that neither of us were currently working even though Joseph had a letter from his firm stating his start of employment and all the necessary details, so we had to get my dad to sign as a guarantor  and provide some serious coaxing to get approved, but we got approved, so we were happy about that.  And after all that, we found out our apartment building was a rent subsidized building, which is really good for us moving forward. So maybe it was just meant to be.

In the end we learned that getting an apartment in New York is actually a miserable process, one I am sure we will have to do again, but I am not looking forward to.

What we have been up to

So we got back from our trip and have had a whirlwind month trying to get our lives together and trying to get everything in order for the move to NYC and the start of Joseph's job.

So in a quick review this is what we have been up to:

- We crashed at my parents house in and out while we were running around trying to get everything done.

- We had a very traumatic 4 days in New York City seeing apartments, finally finding one that would work.

- We spent a day in Charlottesville with Joseph's dad wandering around UVA's campus, thinking about how life might have been if we had gone to UVA, and then finishing the night eating delicious burgers.

- We headed down to Charlotte to hang out with Chris and Sarah for a few days.  Where we carved pumpkins, and hit up really great thrift stores for some warnernance inventory.

- We redid some old furniture to update for the new place.

- Then we headed back up to Virginia to round up our belongings for our big move to NYC when we were delayed a whole week by the Frankenstorm.  It was weird being in Virginia when this crazy storm was happening in New York, and we couldn't really get a good report of what was going on.  Fortunately our apartment was not affected, but we couldn't get ahold of our movers to get our stuff out of storage (it was being stored in New Jersey), and we didn't really want to live in our apartment with none of our stuff and without the subways running and everything so we pushed back the move a week.  We got lucky because out stuff didn't get flooded but a lot of other peoples stuff at the movers warehouse did.  This is us playing Trivial Pursuit in the dark, when we lost power because of the storm.

- We got to celebrate halloween in Virginia, and experience trick or treating with my niece, I dressed up as a shark for part of the time.

- We found out that Joseph passed the Bar!!!! Wahoo!!! Party Time!!

- We drove a Uhaul van up to New York with the belongings that we had acquired at my parents house, along with some of the things that we had been storing there for the past 3 years while we lived in Philly.

- We spent a week unpacking and painting the apartment, furiously trying to get our life in order before Joseph started work.

- Joseph started work on November 12 and has spent the last two weeks getting adjusted to his new job.  This is his first day of work photo!