We need a home!

Mike and I spent the day looking for apartments because our lease is up at the end of October.  Looking for housing in a huge city is truly daunting, tiring and hard work.  It also requires a lot of trips on the L Train, which means a lot of Purell.

As a girl who grew up in Wyoming, my mind will always tell me apartments should run anywhere between $400-$500.  Ha!  That might buy you a cardboard box on Michigan Ave.  In Chicago, it's more like $1400-$1500, and that usually doesn't include parking.  You can tack on another $200-$300 for that.  (Or for the bargain price of $50,000 you can own a parking spot.  Can you imagine?  If I paid that much I would wash my spot daily and just rub it.) 

In my search, I decided to go cheap.  We don't need much, right?  I found an apartment for $1098 on Craigslist, and it was 2 bedrooms!  As Mike and I were walking down the street to it, we walked right smack dab into the middle of a drug deal.  Then voila, once the gun smoke cleared, we found the apartment right next to a vacant lot with a huge barb wire fence around it.  You know what that means.  Barb wire=prisoners.  Yikes!  A very nice Guido greeted us at the door and showed us the apartment.  I'm pretty sure they just found a body in this place.  The overwhelming smells of Lysol/Ammonia pretty much confirms that.  Michael the Guido showed us the apartment (and when they say 2nd bedroom, they really just mean a closet), then took us downstairs to the creepiest basement I've ever seen.  That's where we'd do laundry and according to Michael it's so easy.  "$1.50 for the washing machine, $1.50 for the dryer, and bada bing, bada boom, you're all done, just like that!"  He didn't mention the price of the Colt 45 I'd have to buy to actually go down there by myself.

Clearly, that place didn't work out, or the 5 others we saw, so I'm continuing the search on Craigslist.  I've spent hours on there, trying to sort through the crappy, ghetto apartments and the "vintage" ones which really just means dirty.  There are so many apartments for rent, landlords are getting creative with their one-liners.  For example, they have one-line to explain the place, like "2-bedroom You Must See. Washer/Dryer in Unit."  Here are some of the more interesting ones I've seen..and no, I'm not making this up....

"2-Bedroom and No I Will Not Make Out With You!"

"1-Bedroom and It's Not a Teenage Dream Katy, It's Real!"

"2-Bedroom and Oh My God Karen, You Can't Just Ask People Why They're White."

By the way--creative one-liners usually equals crappy apartment.  Just sayin'.