Sign Here, Initial Here

Yay me! On Friday I signed on an apartment. One bed, one bath, and a real living/dining area. It's got a laundry room and bike storage right across the hall too. It's a little more than I was wanting to pay, but compared to the other apartments I'd looked at, it was worth it (hopefully). The bedroom is a respectable size, whereas most of other places' bedrooms could be mistaken for very large walk-in closets. The living/dining area is also a decent size, which a few other places had, but not all. It's also only about a 12 minute walk from UIC's med school and Cook County Hospital. About a five minute walk from some bars and restaurants (Italian, Thai, Chinese, American, even a Bar Louie). About a 10 minute walk to an L station that'll take me downtown. And since UIC already has us pay for an unlimited CTA pass, I'm good to go on either the L or on buses.

The only negatives to the apartment are that it's a ground apartment - you take stairs down to my place when you enter the building. The kithchen is kinda small, but that seems to be a recurring theme in the area. Also, there's no central air. I've gotta put in a window A/C unit. There's no assigned parking for the building. I'll be buying parking through Chicago, which lets me park in the neighborhood, but without any assigned spot.

There have been some weird (IMO) things while I looked for apartments. It seems like most of the apartments in the area weren't built with central air, just central heat. I met two realtors/landlords who are Illinois alumni. I was scheduled to look at an apartment one day, only to have it get rented before I got a chance to see it. One apartment was setup so that as soon as you walk through the front door, you walk into the bedroom. From the bedroom you can then either enter a bathroom (which itself had an in-window A/C) or enter the living/dining room/kitchen area. Another apartments' tenants had two couches in the living room. Not so strange, but the actual bedrooms had mattresses stacked against the wall, along with bikes and other random stuff. Another apartment had a couch in the kitchen. In his defense, he didn't have an actual living room, just a ginormous bedroom. The security deposits around here are for 1.5 months vs. 1 month. If interested in an apartment, more than one realtor wanted a nonrefundable "holding fee" while they ran a credit check (which I paid for). If credit checked out, they wanted the security deposit in three days, otherwise you lose the apartment. One realtor (who I almost signed with) wanted cash for the security deposit. Coming up with that kind of cash (~$1500) when you're out of town led to a few problems. No one cashes personal checks, ATMs don't have that kind of money, and credit card cash advances have interest rates that burn holes in your soul (no grace period apparently). Figured something out though, but it was little uneasy walking around with that kind of money.

But, I'm pretty happy with the place I found. Almost in my original price range ($50), good location, decent size and setup. Signing on a place makes me even more excited about moving here in August. Just not looking forward to furnishing the place and actually moving my stuff.