Our guest blogger Dedreanna sends an update of the first month in her post-grad apartment.
MOVED IN – MONTH ONE By Dedreanna
It’s been exactly a month since we moved into our first apartment-the most stressful month of my life. There’s no way to fully understand what it’s like to live on your own (with roommates) until you actually go through it.
At the beginning of May, the moving process began. It took us two truckloads and four “omg I think my car’s going to fall apart because it’s so full of stuff” carloads. I still have items at my moms house that she’s letting me get another time, because I couldn’t afford the gas to keep going back.
It’s only been a month and we’ve already gone through most of the situations we expected, living with another couple.
-Rent Disputes
-Decor conflicts
-Grocery issues
-Arguments about who cleans and who doesn’t
-Arguments about who buys the household supplies
…and so on..
The Job Situation. I wouldn’t recommend moving into a new city, or apartment until you have a job lined up. We moved to Fredericton ( New Brunswick, Canada), with a limited amount of money and no jobs, hoping we’d be able to make it. Luckily, after a few weeks of searching, I landed a job at a call center- Not my dream job, but it pays the bills for now. I’ve also been looking for volunteer opportunities around town for journalism, because I’m not going to give up something I love just because I don’t have that job right away. Unfortunately my fiance Mitch is still searching, so his weeks are filled with interviews, dropping off resumes, and calling back possible employers. Like I said above-unless you have a significant amount of money saved up-never move without a job lined up.
The Apartment. We still love our apartment as much as we did when we first saw it-but there are some problems that we didn’t notice upon first viewing.
-The faucet in the kitchen doesn’t work right.
-The screen in the living room was taped to the window frame.
-We currently have an ant problem, that’s being taken care of as we speak.
-It’s right next to an elementary school, which means every break and lunch hour we hear the roar of screaming children-very loud.
Luckily our landlord has been amazing when it comes to problems, and has no problem helping us fix things.
Cable/ Internet Issues. When we first moved in, one thing we all decided on immediately was where we wanted to get our services from. We chose one company for cable, and another for phone and internet. We had several problems with our internet right away. None of the routers worked, even after a technician came over, and they had to send us several before it was finally resolved. With cable, it works great in every room except out roommate’s room, where they only get 11 channels. On top of everything, my fiance’s computer crashed shortly after we moved in, and then got a major virus-which made it very difficult to look for jobs, or write articles.
This first month has been full of ups and downs, but the ups are worth this whole experience. Little moments like having our first meal- pizza on the empty living room floor, to hanging pictures in our bedroom, and exploring the city with Mitch, are things that make this experience worth it. I know there will be more problems in the months to come, because you can’t avoid it, but we plan to take it day by day and make the best of our first apartment.
Dedreanna’s experience teaches a several lessons to all apartment hunters.
1.) Check the apartment carefully before signing the lease – run the water faucets, light the oven, etc. Use our 10 point apartment checklist as a guideline.
2.) Visit the apartment at different times of day. Having a noisy school yard next door should not be a surprise.
3.) And many roommate issues could be easy to resolve if the ground rules were established up front. Our
roommate agreement checklist covers a bunch is issues that should be discussed before the lease is signed.