What I’m Learning About Apartment-Hunting:

1. Seeing “utilities not included” translates into “You’ll be completely on your own if you rent here.”
2. All those stupid “Rent to Own” ads are everywhere, and they’re nothing more than spam. Rampant spam. Getting in the way of my searches. Not cool.
3. You learn to distinguish a promising available space from a not-so-promising one by the spelling in the ad.
4. It’s very, very sad when you see a gorgeous place being advertised, and it’s not even remotely affordable.
5. You don’t realize how much of an age difference there is between 23 and 29 until you view a place inhabited by 23-year-olds.
6. Everything in your price range is either two hours away, being shared by three other people, or looks really gross and depressing in the pictures.
7. I honestly have no idea for whom “wall-to-wall carpeting” is a solid selling point, but whatever.
8. It’s an endless emotional see-saw of “Hey, what a cute place! And it’s affordable! This could be it!” to “Aw, man, I’ve looked at four places this week and none of them seemed right. I’m never going to find a new home!”
9. It’s easy to begin identifying with shelter animals looking for their “forever homes.”
10. All the memories of how awful it was to have to pack up and move when you were a kid come flooding back to you.
11. In spite of craving change and excitement and new opportunities, you still don’t look forward to the inevitable “Oh, God, what am I doing here?!” feeling that always comes with moving into a new place.
12. You can go over every detail of every potential new residence with a fine-tooth comb so you don’t get cheated, robbed or conned….but no matter what, you’ll still find there are downsides that you’ll just have to live with, because you did, in fact, sign up for this. At least for a year or more.