Apartment Hunting
Boy, those cats are troublesome. They've discovered that the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen and bathroom in this place are not firmly held in place (say, with a magnet) when closed, and that they can open them pretty much at will. Both cats enjoy opening the double-door cupboard under the bathroom sink and going in and out. Good thing I'm not staying here permanently!
Moreover, this apartment has sliding doors on the bathtub rather than the shower curtain I had in Wisconsin, and Newton has discovered that he can open the doors if he wants, so twice yesterday during my shower I noticed that the doors had been opened a few inches, and that water was spraying out onto the floor. Rascal! I guess he got pretty wet when he did it, so maybe he's been quickly cured of that, since he didn't do that today.
The big challenge with apartments in the SF bay area is the price; whereas in Madison I was paying $750/month for probably the nicest one bedroom apartment in town, $750 would pretty much get me a rathole here, unless I wanted to live far out of town. One bedrooms start around $1000, and two bedrooms are $1200+. And I wanted to get a two bedroom. So obviously I'd basically committed to spending a much larger chunk of my paycheck on housing than I was used to.
Another challenge is finding a place that takes cats, although fortunately cats are easier to house than dogs. I guess Mamie made many phone calls before lining up five places for me to look at. It was a beautiful day, which gave me a good look at the areas we hit.
One place was a two-floor apartment in an apartment complex. The place was apparently under new management, but I wasn't too impressed with the neighborhood, and one of the "bedrooms" was clearly just an office. (I want an actual bedroom since I have high expectations of family coming to visit while I'm here.) It was quite cheap - under the $1200 amount I mentioned - but still, I wouldn't have felt comfortable there, I think.
A second place was a reasonably nice place, clearly having been renovated recently, although still with some definite signs of age. I would have felt okay renting it, although as we'll see I saw some better ones.
A third place was very nice, basically just what I was looking for: Well-maintained, large square rooms, a nice kitchen, and a parking stall. On the other hand, it was probably at the high end of the price range, in large part, I think, because it was north of Apple, in Sunnyvale, and prices in the valley (a.k.a. the South Bay) seem to get higher as you head north and west towards the peninsula.
The fourth place was south and east of Apple, and was very impressive: It seemed reasonably spacious, despite having two bathrooms (being one person, I don't really need two bathrooms), a very nice kitchen, two parking spaces, a nice neighborhood, and close to a very large and nice-looking park. The landlord seemed like a nice guy, and I was very encouraged by this place. Better yet, it was at the low end of my price range.
The fifth and last place was what made it difficult: It was one unit of the two-unit townhouse, and was huge: Two stores with a large living room, two humongous bedrooms, two-and-a-half bathrooms, a garage with lots of storage space, laundry in the unit, A/C, a security system; really, just a lot of stuff.
What was the downside? Well, it's $300/month more than option #4, I didn't feel entirely comfortable with the neighborhood - not just because it was less interesting, but I had an undefinable 'bad feeling' about an area a couple blocks south of it, and because the living room had a wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling mirror on one wall, which is just strange. I think if any one of those three points were not an issue, I'd be far more likely to jump at it, but all three... I just don't quite feel comfortable, despite the vast quantities of space it presents.
Besides, $300 a month is $300 a month, which is a lot of money over a year no matter how you slice it. And being new to the area, maybe I should go for what seems like the safer bet until I'm more familiar with the area - and have more time to look for a new place.
I talked this over with some friends, and with my mom, and got varying opinions on what I should do. One other option, of course, is to take neither place and keep looking for something that looks even better. Apparently housing competition is so intense around here that doing so would basically mean that those places would be gone if I changed my mind about them. (John said something akin to, "Dude, it's been a day; if you want one of those places, you should call them now and sign the lease.")
So, my thought is that I'll see about signing a lease for option #4 tomorrow, if it's still available. Unless it somehow turns out to be too small (and I don't think that it will), I think it will be a good first apartment in the area. So, cross your fingers that things go smoothly tomorrow.
(Aside: I seem to be adding the words "dude", "rock" and "kick" to my vocabulary, on top of having swapped out "basically" in favor of "pretty much" on my trip out here last summer. Sheesh!)
The orientation group had about 15 people in it - and apparently they have an orientation session every week. Either the company is really growing, or else there's a lot of turnover in companies of this size. (Epic, being only 300+ people, tended to have groups of 6-to-8 people start once a month.)
Today was a good day to spend inside, since it was cloudy, a little chilly (45 degree highs are chilly out here), and quite rainy. Really rather dreary - with the exception of when I looked up from my office computer around 4 pm and saw a beautiful rainbow shining outside. I quickly got up and went around the hall to get a better view, and saw a wonderful view indeed: The rainbow was fully visible, from one end to the other, and the six main colors were fully visible. It's been a while since I've seen any rainbow, and this was a great one.
(Unfortunately, most of the rest of my department was in a meeting from before I got back from orientation, and the 'bow was gone before they returned.)
I just started Vernor Vinge's new novel, A Deepness in the Sky, which is at last out in hardcover. It's a "prequel" of sorts to his excellent Hugo award-winner, A Fire Upon the Deep. John is reading it too, and has been ragging on me to catch up to him. But with everything going on lately, I have been a little distracted and have been reading only haphazardly. (I started Speaking Stones before ADitS was out.)
No shortage of stuff to do, eh?
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