All we wanted was a one bedroom apartment, but the universe had other ideas…

As some of you might remember, my husband and I found out back in May that we would need to move out of our current apartment when our lease ran out in November. As soon as we found out we started searching online and compiled a list of possible complexes that we might be interested in moving into. A couple months later we went and looked at few complexes, although we were only able to see an actual apartment at one of those complexes. We knew what our top 2 choices were for apartment complexes. Near the end of August we contacted one of those complexes and found out that they had only one, one bedroom apartment available during the time that we need to move. This was at one of the apartment complexes that we hadn’t been able to tour an apartment at previously, but they had one available to view then. While we were at the complex looking at the apartment we found out that the apartment that would be available would be a third floor apartment, facing east. Which was exactly what we were looking for. As we were discussing if we were going to put down a deposit on the apartment that day, the apartment manager that was helping us told us that she would be able to give us a deal on our rental rate for a year lease, and give us a discount on our first month’s rent. We decided to go ahead and put down a deposit that day and we thought that we knew where we were going to moving to in the beginning of November.

Then we got a call the second week in October from the apartment complex that we were planning on moving to letting us know that the person living in the apartment that we had put a deposit down on decided to sign a new lease and would not be moving. We contacted the office and after a few utterly useless phone calls over a few days, we finally got a hold of the apartment manager that we had been working with back in August. She apologized for the entire situation and how it wasn’t handled very well by her office over the last few days. She then let us know that she could move our deposit to a second floor apartment, facing west, in a different building. We weren’t happy with it being a second floor apartment since we really wanted a third floor apartment, but we were willing to take it to be able to move into that complex.

We then got another phone call from the office Tuesday of last week letting us know that the people in the second floor apartment also decided to sign a new lease and also wouldn’t be moving. So we were now going to have to move into a bottom floor apartment, facing east, in the building that we were originally going to be moving into. We really didn’t want to have to move into a bottom floor apartment, especially after realizing that the apartment would be half underground. Only the top half of the windows were above ground. We really didn’t want to have to do it, but we needed an apartment and it was too late to try to get our deposit refunded and try to find one in a different complex. Plus, we wanted an apartment in that complex. So we agreed to take that apartment, but asked the apartment manager to contact the people living there and make sure that they were in fact moving. She agreed that she would, but had the next day off so we had to wait until Thursday to find out anything.

When she called us back on Thursday she told us that the people in the bottom floor apartment are moving into a house and that house will not be ready as soon as they thought it would be and therefore needed another month. We need to move in November, so that was the third apartment in a row that the people living there either weren’t moving, or weren’t moving soon enough. The apartment manager told us that in all her years of working in apartment management she has never seen a situation like this before. She also told us that there were no more one bedroom apartments that would be available during the time that we needed to move. She then offered us an interesting deal though. She had spoken to her her manager about our completely ridiculous and crappy situation and had gotten permission to offer us a one bedroom townhouse for only $20 more a month than what we were going to be paying for a one bedroom apartment. That’s over $100 off what normal rental rates would be. Plus the apartment manager had verified that the people in the townhouse will in fact actually be moving.  

We do like the floor plan for the one bedroom apartment better, but the more we looked into the townhouse the more perks we saw there would be if we moved into it. The living space of the townhouse is above a one car garage. We have no real need of a garage since we don’t own a car, but the extra storage space could be quite useful. We then looked at the building that we’d be moving into via Google Maps and realized that not only would we not have upstairs or downstairs neighbors, but the actual living space of the townhouse doesn’t share any walls with any of the other townhouses in that building.

So we will now be moving into a one bedroom townhouse in the beginning of November and the game of musical apartments that we had become unwilling participants in has finally come to an end.