Got Gas?

September 30, 2006 | By Kate AuthorMy First Apartment

My senior year in college, I sublet a room in an off-campus house with some friends. This house, like every other house I’ve lived in, used gas to heat the stove and water heater. One icy day in mid January, my infinitely lovely and practical roommate M. and I were alone in the downstairs apartment,…

Sites Kate Likes

September 27, 2006 | By Kate AuthorMy First Apartment

Design/Lifestyle:http://apartmenttherapy.com –Daily blogs featuring news, reviews, and other info to help make your apartment a better place. New York, LA, San Francisco, and Chicago all have their own blogs, but the advice contained within will be inspirational wherever you live. Also check out the “Kitchen” blog for design and cooking tips. http://shelterrific.com –From the publishers…

Surviving a Visit from Your Parents

September 20, 2006 | By Kate AuthorMy First Apartment

As much as I love my family, I always get a little stressed out when they come to visit. They just don’t always, you know, get it. Case in point: my sophomore year in college. My mom was planning a visit to Boston and she asked me if it would be weird if she stayed…

What You Should Know about Using a Rental Broker

September 15, 2006 | By Kate AuthorMy First Apartment

Using a fee broker to find your first apartment should be your last resort, but sometimes you may not have a choice, especially if you are moving to a new city that has a low vacancy rate, such as New York. When you’re searching for a pad, you’ll probably start out with Craigslist and other…

Five Lessons from My Search

September 11, 2006 | By Kate AuthorMy First Apartment

When I first moved to California, I wasn’t sure what city I wanted to stay in. I lived like a nomad for months, camping on friends’ couches in a few different cities and assessing the territory before deciding where I finally wanted to settle. I eventually decided to stay in Los Angeles, partially because I…

A Few More Internet Resources

September 9, 2006 | By Kate AuthorMy First Apartment

Below, as promised, are a few resources to help you navigate rental real estate in your region. Apartmentratings.com allows you to search and provide ratings of specific buildings, in the area code or region that you’d like to live in. People dish about where they’ve lived and looked, filling you in on both fabulous and…

Five Six Things to Do Before You Move In

September 6, 2006 | By Kate AuthorMy First Apartment

1. Document any problems with the apartment with photographs and detailed descriptions so that you have no problem getting your security deposit back when you move out. Give a copy of this list to your landlord (this may even prompt him or her to make a few more repairs!) 2. Turn on your utilities. Nobody…

The Housing Virgins of Manhattan and Other Apartment Hunting Stories in the News

September 2, 2006 | By Kate AuthorMy First Apartment

If you’re searching for your first apartment, you probably thought your days of homework were behind you. Wrong! More important that any book report is the research that you should do to prepare yourself for the housing search. This web site is a great place to start for basic checklists and info. Beyond MyFirstApartment.com, however,…

What did you think I would post about next?

August 30, 2006 | By Kate AuthorMy First Apartment

Close on eggs’ heels in the race of easy, delicious things to cook: chicken soup. No, not the Campbell’s kind. Dear reader, you’re a grown-up now, and your grown-up taste buds deserve better. Remember that cooking, like all of life’s arts, requires lots of practice, and lots of trial and error. Start basic, expect to…

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

August 28, 2006 | By Kate AuthorMy First Apartment

When you’re learning to cook, it’s definitely the egg. Eggs are an easy, cheap, delicious, and nutritious thing to cook when you’re first starting out. You can scramble, boil, whip, poach, or even slurp them raw. Although that, technically, doesn’t count as cooking. When I was a kid, scrambled eggs were one of my top…