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Avoiding apartment nightmares other than a psycho roommateOct 30 '00 (Updated Jan 18 '01) Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line Allocate enough time to fully research potential apartment units with enough effort as you would to select a roommate! So you survived your time in the dorms and the freak that was your roommate? Excited about moving out to your first apartment? Don’t think your problems are solved just because you found yourself an ultra considerate, very laid-back, and quiet roommate. The perfect roommate can’t counteract the nightmares of the apartment from hell. Before you start pounding the pavement, consider a few tips from one who has survived a few annoying incidents, numerous headaches as a result of fellow tenants, and one flood (originating from the apartment of an upstairs neighbor—-more on that below). Please note that I understand this is not the ideal category to place this editorial, but I think it's important to note that roommates are not the only factor that can make or break one's experience in living away from home for the first time. Where to start? The easiest thing to do would be to take over the lease of a friend who’s moving out who is happy with their apartment. This seems to be rather rare in a tight housing market (like in the San Francisco Bay Area), as I find that many students remain in their apartments now post-graduation. If you’re lucky enough to find a friend who likes their apartment and has a landlord willing to let you take the unit, make sure your friend can answer a few key questions before rushing to sign a lease. The following questions also apply to prospective apartments located through more traditional methods like pounding the pavement or using a rental services agency. In these cases, try and find current tenants who should be able to answer most of these questions. 1. Do the apartments have thin walls? This may be a weird question, but hear me out. In my current apartment building, I can hear people walking by in the hallway. And I don’t mean just the lull of voices. I can hear EVERY WORD of their conversations. I even wake up upon hearing my next door neighbor’s alarm! This also translates into hearing more intimate situations such as my upstairs neighbor’s trysts. Sigh. Boy, do I wish she would at least move her bed away from the wall! Thin walls are even more aggravating when you’re located near an entry point, like a front door or an elevator. My current apartment is right across from the elevator, so I hear the hallway door slam and the footsteps/voices of everyone walking by. My second apartment was located on the first floor in the back of the building adjacent to the stairway from the garage. This meant that I awoke every time a drunk (or sober) tenant staggered up the steps at 2 a.m., yelling nonsensical remarks or just totally unaware of the volume of his or her voice. They say location is important, but I never knew how important a unit’s location in a building was until thin walls came into the picture! I can’t play the poor, aggrieved tenant without confessing that I was once the source of aggravation for a fellow tenant. My first apartment had an old, creaky wooden staircase that led up to my front door. I found out from a manager who moved in below my apartment a year after me that he had been awakened on several occasions by my high heels clicking as I ran up the staircase! Oops! Well, a noisy staircase outside your window is another thing to look out for! Compare this to my fiance, brace33’s apartment building, where he can barely hear the roar of a vacuum cleaner in an adjoining apartment, and you’ll understand why this question is now on my “must-ask” list for all future apartments. 2. Is the unit on the top floor/at the end of the hall/away from an entry point? This question follows up on an issue raised in the previous question, but also raises new points. As I mentioned earlier, exterior noises are annoying. But people rarely hang out in front of my door talking loudly, my neighbor’s trysts usually end soon enough, and the alarm clock is never set too early (truth be told, I’m usually awake before him!). Luckily, my unit doesn't face the front of the building. The poor guys in the two front units always hear the annoying buzzing of the front gate whenever someone enters (even residents must punch in a code to buzz themselves in, rather than using a key). I don't even like the buzzing when I enter everyday, so I can imagine how annoyed those guys are. But what I find most annoying is the fact that I’m not on the top floor. Want one unusual reason? How about seeing a stream of water dripping from the ceiling in my apartment when the upstairs neighbors had a drunk friend fall asleep in the bathtub with the water running? Sure, rain could flood a top floor apartment more often than an upstairs neighbor would. But I’ll never forget the sight of water dripping down the walls, the squishy feeling of walking on water-soaked carpet, the noise from the high-powered fans drying the carpet for the next 2 days (ALL NIGHT!), or the incredulous looks of friends who heard my story. You are reading an epinion by smiles33. If it appears under someone else's name, it has been plagiarized! Please report it to Epinions and email me to let me know: smilesesq@yahoo.com. Thanks. Now, ready for a more conventional reason for preferring a top floor apartment? Avoiding the annoying heavy thumps of a lead-footed neighbor is an excellent one in my book! There’s nothing like thumps to disrupt one’s concentration or prevent one from falling asleep. I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve laid in bed, shooting angry thoughts towards the loud thumps and scrapes coming from upstairs. I don’t know what that girl does to create such loud noises—-does she get her kicks off dragging a table or dresser from one corner to the other? 3. Is the management responsive to requests for repair or service? You’ll find that in areas with a large student population, landlords tend to take advantage of students who are often more naive or just less able to demand good service. My first apartment was unbelievably cheap for the Los Angeles market as I had my own bedroom for $330, compared to friends who shared a room with another roommate for $400 each. Needless to say, I got what I paid for because the management ignored requests to repair the dishwasher, replace a deadbolt that didn’t fit in the door jamb, and fix the inoperable heating system. Despite even higher rents, none of my friends had good landlords. It seems that all we got for our monthly rent checks was the key to the front door. Even now, in my current apartment, I find that my landlord ignores my letters requesting maintenance. I sent several formal letters, included with the rent check, asking that the lights in the front of the building be repaired and that a security peephole be installed in my front door. I ended up drilling and installing my own peephole. I also walk very gingerly down the dark front stairway. You see, despite my legal background, I have yet to figure out how to get my landlord to respond to my requests. Anyone with suggestions, PLEASE offer them! Until then, I’m counting the days until I move out! 4. Did the management return one’s security deposit in a timely manner? One of my closest friends had to go to small claims court to force her former landlord to return her security deposit after he ignored her requests for over ONE YEAR after she had moved out. The law requires that the deposit be returned in a reasonable amount of time, which I believe in California is a number of weeks (NOT months). While this is more difficult to find out because current residents haven’t moved out yet, it doesn’t hurt to ask and see if they’ve heard about the management’s reputation. 5. Are there any regular disruptions/traffic concerns in the area near the building? This one is more difficult to get an answer to unless you talk to a tenant who’s in the apartment enough to know what’s going on at random hours. For example, a friend lives in an apartment building across from a park that has weekly soccer games in the summer. These games drew crowds at an early hour on the weekend, preventing my friend from sleeping in. Additionally, I learned afterwards that one building I looked at, but ultimately decided against (for other reasons), is across the street from a bus stop. This bus stop actually serves two very busy lines, so I’m thankful I didn’t decide on that apartment! Those screeching brakes are so grating on one’s ears! But there is one simple thing you CAN do—walk around a bit in the neighborhood. Then you might discover a fraternity house is 4 doors down, like I did after I moved in. 6. How safe is the surrounding area? This may be discovered a number of ways, including more elaborate ones like talking to the police department and getting statistics. After I moved into my current apartment, I learned from the campus police department’s e-mail server (which sends out regular alerts to subscribers) that a street two blocks from me is the site of numerous muggings/robberies. This is something I could’ve discovered with a little work, but I didn’t think of it at the time. An easier task would be walking in the neighborhood, which may also reveal some interesting tidbits regarding the safety. I wish I had done so before moving into my past and current apartments. You can learn a lot! One time, while standing in front of my old building, a homeless man walked by and told me that I was on the dirtiest street of all Berkeley. And, I didn’t learn until after I moved into my current building (which is less than a block from the famous People’s Park), that this same park is also the home of homeless people who yell out to me when I walk by on the way to school. I don’t mind the mutterings of the mentally ill or the unpleasant smells, but the sexual harassment by the numerous men is uncomfortable and a little scary. Minor details that may be aggravating, though not necessarily nightmarish.... These are a few things to consider as well, though obviously not as important: 1. On-site washer/dryer -- you don't want to be lugging loads to a public laundromat when you could be doing better things like partying, surfing the Net, or watching a movie. 2. Garbage chute on the floor -- I currently haul my trash down to the basement, which is a minor hassle, and somewhat scary at night. It also leads me to delay dumping the trash until it's really full (and sometimes, when it's already really smelly). 3. Closet space -- In my current studio, I have one regular-sized closet that must hold my clothes, shoes, purses, cleaning supplies, linens, and everything else that doesn't fit in my dresser. There aren't any other storage areas! With limited space as it is, I make do with cramming stuff under my bed, but I sure would've appreciated having a linen or storage closet as well! The final say I know, I am still pretty much the sheltered girl from the suburbs and many of these tips aim to simulate the environment I came from: a quiet, comfortable, safe home. But I think these are conditions universally desired, even if one is not accustomed to them because of the reality of urban life. Thus, I think it’s wise to determine exactly what kind of apartment you’re thinking of living in, get to know the neighborhood before you move in, and determine what kind of management you have to work with before you’re stuck for a year-long lease. Good luck, and I hope you manage to avoid some of the non-roommate-related travails of apartment life!  |
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