Apartment Hunting. Again. Some More.

When we finally decided to move to Louisville a little over a year ago, and I got my job offer, we didn’t have much time to apartment hunt. Since we didn’t know the city, we basically threw ourselves at the mercy of Rent.com. When the time came to actually drive down to Louisville from Chicago and look for an apartment in town, we only had one day to  see all of the complexes we could. Trying to find a place via Craigslist wasn’t an option, since we had no idea what neighborhoods to look at, and complexes have staffed rental offices so at the very least there was always someone available we could talk to.

In the course of that day, we must have seen a half-dozen complexes, and walked through units in varying states of deterioration and stinkiness. We finally decided at the last minute on the apartment we have now based on the model we saw, and the fact that, for the price, we got the bonus of an in-unit washer and dryer.

Because we agreed to the lease based on the model, I was worried that the apartment we would actually live in would be a disaster, a stinky, deteriorating mess with a leaky sink and no water pressure. Happily, I was wrong. But we do have to contend with a lack of sunlight, a view of the parking lot, a management staff that doesn’t quite get the whole “call before coming over” concept, and, oh yes, the fact that one of the buildings in our complex caught on fire earlier this year.

Needless to say, now that our 14-month lease is up, we’d like to move.

I’ve been stalking Craigslist for a couple of weeks now, and I have to say that Louisville is not a town drowning in rental opportunities. Sure, the students at U of L have their pick of affordable apartments near the university, but for working professionals like Mr. Martini and I who don’t want to be surrounded on all sides by students, the pickings are slim. Most people in our position own their own houses, it seems, so the rental units are few and far between, at least in the neighborhoods we want to live in.

Because I do want to live in a neighborhood. A walkable neighborhood, where I don’t necessarily need to take the car to get coffee on a Sunday morning. I’m longing for a place with lots of light, where the cats can bask in sunbeams like they used to in Chicago.  Selfishly, I’d love to have a little more room for my crafts, too.

Fortunately, we have plenty of time to find a place. Unlike Chicago, where you’d be crazy to let your lease lapse before finding a new place, or else find yourself homeless. I’m trying to be calm, and realize that even though we have to let our current landlord know we’re not renewing our lease, that we still have an entire month to find something new, and that’s plenty of time. I will say that most of the listings I’m seeing all seem to say, “Available now!” so the turnaround time that we could be in a new place would probably be very short.

I’m just finding it hard to keep my confidence up about this whole process when the list of rentals on Craigslist doesn’t really change much from day to day.

But then we have an evening like last night, when our HVAC starts spewing a smell somewhere between wet dog and rotting hay, and I think, “Oh, yeah, eff this place. We’re moving.”

Wish us luck, will you? Thanks.