Craigslist got an udpate

Did anyone notice that Craigslist updated the website recently?

Maybe it’s just me that noticed since I’ve been searching for a place to live for months and am on the Dayton apartment listing page all.the.time.

Craigslist update = a preview image in search results without having to click to view the listing and (on some posts) a pop-up menu for emailing in reply to a post.

Too bad the preview images are so tiny you have to view the post just to see what is in the picture. But, I applaud the change. It’s progress. Now, if they really want to improve the website, at least for people who rely on the apartment/housing for rent page when looking for new digs, Craigslist needs to:

• implement a map view (similar to PadMapper)
• have strict information requirements for landlords/management companies

Both of those things would vastly improve the Apt/housing for rent page and make it a much more reliable source. Incidentally, the other development in the year since my last apartment hunt is the overload of bogus posts on Craigslist. It certainly seems like Craigslist could do something at the point where information is entered with the listing details that would eliminate most of the fraud/scam posts. Seriously, all they need to do is set up a fill-in-the-blank form with the required information. And, I’m thinking it would help if the display of the information was updated to a standard format in the search results. Of course, I’m no website developer so it all seems like it would be super easy to me.

As for the required information that should be standard in any FOR RENT listing, I can help you out with what to include in a form to be filled out online (or at least a standard list of information to ask for when replying to a housing post). And by required, I mean, a rental listing cannot exist on Craigslist without this information being provided:

• $ of each: rent/security deposit/application fee
• lease terms
• date available
• address
• square footage
• number of rooms (total, plus bedrooms / bathrooms)
• utilities included in rent
• type of building (single family house / duplex / fourplex / apartment complex / etc)
• parking (garage / on-street / driveway / additional cost)
• laundry (included & free / coin-operated / hookups)
• kitchen appliances (refrigerator / stove / microwave / dishwasher)
• central air / window AC and radiator / forced-air heat and ceiling fans
• pets allowed

And the optional information that should be on the fill-in-the-blank form as well:

• flooring (carpet / wood / linoleum / tile)
• floor of building (basement / main floor / top floor / side-by-side unit / single story / other)
• extra storage (basement locker / private basement)
• private deck / balcony / porch / patio
• security system
• updates: new windows / flooring / furnace / appliances / water heater / etc

After all, people are searching for their new home. Why not make it easier to find the right place?

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Any landlords or property managers out there, take note. Please. You can start the change by providing the above information without the help of an online form. If not, expect a lot of questions. At least from good tenants who really care about finding the right place to call home. Like me.

PS: dear Craigslist, you’re welcome. Any donations you want to send my way for providing this genius concept will be cheerfully accepted.

painting is a good thing

I just looked at a few apartments with a realtor who represents multiple property owners.

I kinda liked one of the units and asked a few questions beyond the standard “how much is rent” and “what utilities are included.”

One of my questions was “would they allow me to paint?” Which is apparently the magic question for him. Immediately he told me he loves it when people ask that question and always encourages the property owners to rent to tenants who want to paint. He said it shows that someone is going to care about the place where they live and treat it like their own home (in the sense that people generally don’t trash their own property). It also might indicate that you plan on staying for a while.

He did say that there are usually some restrictions in color and you’re likely to have to paint it back to the original color or at least prime it (so there’s less expense and work for the owner). But, I’d say it might also depend on whether you rent from a management company or an independent landlord. If your apartment is one of just a few units owned by the landlord there might be more flexibility on this issue. At least I have found that tendency to be true.

On the restrictions I found it absolutely hilarious because one of the phrases that came out of his mouth was “as long as it’s not electric green.” And I had to stop myself from snickering and saying something about my bedroom and bathroom in my last place (which I painted).

I do have to say that I think there is a big difference between electric green (or fluorescent) and lime or apple green—which are rather trendy colors right now.

Oh, and he also eliminates hot pink from the options. Which I am in agreement with. Nobody should ever paint hot pink on walls in a home or apartment. But, then again I don’t like pink, so maybe it’s a personal thing for me. Generally you might be limited to selecting from a palette of muted and neutral colors when renting.

I recommend checking out paint chip samples from Restoration Hardware if you happen to live anywhere near one of their locations. They have some gorgeous colors that are lovely muted neutrals—soft blues, greens, yellows, creams, grays, and browns. And you can find bedding and towels to match! If you pick from their paint colors take your paint chip to your local hardware store for expert color matching services so you don’t spend a fortune on paint.

dish mountain

think about your dishwashing habits (and cooking/baking) when you consider an apartment with or without a dishwasher.

If you don’t ever cook, the lack of a dishwasher may not be a big deal. But, if you love cooking, baking, or entertaining guests you may want to add a dishwasher to your non-negotiable apartment amenities (wish list). Or, if you’re like me and just find it hard to make the time to tackle dish mountain.

Or if you really enjoy washing dishes by hand it shouldn’t matter. A college roommate of mine would talk to her parents at a scheduled time every weekend and she washed the dishes while she was on the phone which was super convenient for me! I did wash dishes that year, but she probably washed a whole lot more than me.

My Grandpa is one of those who prefers washing dishes by hand (it’s what he’s been used to his whole life). He has a mini dishwasher in his apartment and he uses it, but only for storing plastic bags used for the trash bin and plastic storage containers. I wish I could take his dishwasher and put it in my apartment.

I go through waves of clean and not-so-clean in my apartment. The most problematic area to keep up on is the dirty dish pile, which sometimes turns into a mountain.

My current dish mountain:

This is a huge reason that in my next apartment hunt a dishwasher is a non-negotiable on the wish list. Life will be much less of a chore in the kitchen. And my counters, and the dish fairies (AKA my parents), will be thankful.

You’d think it would be easy to keep up on the dishes with no roommate, but I’m usually eating breakfast and lunch when I have no extra time before rushing out the door. Then, after dinner in the evening, I don’t like to wash the dishes immediately after eating. For some reason it seems to cut off the enjoyment of a good meal. That or else I finish eating in the middle of a show that I want to finish watching so I plan on doing them later. And then I forget, or get sucked into another show!

A couple years ago I checked out a library book that had a section on dishwashing (I can’t remember the title, but it was an eco/green type book). What I read there made me even less likely to handwash my dishes after every meal when there’s only a handful of dirty dishes. Sanitization is the main reason for washing dishes and apparently if you’re washing by hand the best way to sanitize the dishes is to let them soak in really hot water for somewhere between 30 and 45 seconds. Which is a bit of a deterrent, to me, when there’s only a handful of dishes after each meal and I don’t want to take the time to fill up the sink to let the dishes soak before washing them. Plus, it seems a bit wasteful on the water usage end of things.

So, I suppose I should go take care of that mountain on my counter.

Roommates 101

Roommates. They can be the best and worst thing. And there are many different kinds of roommate situations. College dorms. Apartments. Houses. Shared bedrooms or shared common space. Assigned. Chosen. Found online. Friends. Strangers. Boyfriends or girlfriends. Relatives. Cross-cultural. Neighbors. No roommates. I’ve lived through just about every roommate situation you can imagine. And now, I live by myself.

A big bonus of having a roommate (or multiple roomies) is that your housing expenses will be reduced. Splitting the cost of rent, utilities, cable, and internet can be a big help whether or not you have a good paying job, are out of work, or just prefer to spend more of your hard earned money elsewhere.

My roommate experience began in college. Three girls in a one-room dorm room (thankfully with its own bathroom, closet, and kitchenette). It quickly changed to two as one girl chose to head back home—during the first week of classes. So my roomie and I lucked out with more of our own space than most of the other dorm residents.

After that, I had different roommates each year of college, by choice—a total of nine roommates in four years. They were all pretty good since I was able to pick my roommates. Except for that one year when a friend decided not to come back and the school assigned a transfer student to me and my other roommate. People who are constantly sleeping at odd hours of the day and up at odd hours of the night are not my ideal roommate…unless it’s because of the roommate’s career.

Figuring out if your lifestyle and potential roommate’s lifestyle will work together is something I highly recommend talking through. You could be the best of friends, love hanging out together, and think living together makes perfect sense, but living together could drive you crazy. And possibly ruin your relationship. Or, you could find a total stranger for your new roommate and end up being life-long friends.

You don’t want to get yourself into a legally binding lease agreement (with your roommate and the landlord/management company) and find out within a couple weeks that it’s not going to work out. If that happens you’re likely to end up paying extra to try to get out of your lease or finding someone to replace you, not to mention all the expense of finding a new place, paying another security deposit (if you didn’t get the other one back), and moving again.

Anywho, here’s a very brief rundown of some of my other living situations: being a live-in nanny, staying with various friend’s families in between other housing arrangements, living with my Great Aunt & Uncle, having 7 roommates in 4 months while living on a ship, staying with Dad’s cousin while apartment hunting, living in a couple apartments with friends (and one crazy landlady), renting a tiny bedroom in a friend’s house, and sharing a house with a single mom, her two kids, their grandma, and a married couple (yes, all in one house!).

:: IMPORTANT THINGS TO DISCUSS ::

lease terms
rent amount (affordability)
convenience to job locations
type of building
number of bathrooms
number of bedrooms
utilities, cable, internet, phone
apartment amenity wish-lists & compromising
sharing food
cleaning habits
work schedules
furniture (share cost or not)
entertaining guests
overnight visitors

location, location, location

It is HOT and HUMID here in Minnesota. Which is making staying indoors with air conditioning practically a necessity. It is sooooo miserable outside and has been like this for a few days in a row. It feels like a sauna outside my four walls.

If you are in search of a new rental home, I cannot stress enough how important location is. And there are quite a few aspects to think about in regards to location.

Today’s location topic is:
consider the weather when choosing your location

Even if you can’t do much about the weather in the area where you are looking, unless you’ve quit or lost your job and can move wherever you want to start over, you can search for an apartment with the best location. Weather-wise. It’s all about the windows and which direction(s) they face.

I’ve lived in north-facing, south-facing, east-facing, and west-facing places and found that there are benefits to all of them. But, if you’re renting an apartment in a building you are not likely to have the luxury of enjoying windows facing all four directions. So, you’ve got to think about what you like . . .

• the sun streaming in from the East thru your bedroom window in the early hours of the morning
• a view (hopefully you’ve got some sort of view) of beautiful sunsets every night with West facing windows
• full sun streaming in all day long with a wall of southern windows
• no direct sunshine with windows on a North wall

Now those examples are relevant here where I live in the northern regions of the Northern Hemisphere. You might find some variations, depending on the position of the sun, if you live further south.

My current home is on the north side of a building with morning sun coming in the kitchen and the afternoon and evening sun streaming in the main room. I lucked out with three different exposures: East, North, and West.

The East and West windows are pretty great. No complaints about them. Sometimes I wish I had windows on the South wall, but that’s mainly in winter. The north windows are pretty great, too. But, there are some pros and cons to a northern exposure, especially in the winter time in the Northern Hemisphere (not a whole lot of sunshine coming in the windows).

Right now, the pros are greatly out-weighing the cons for my northern windows. Since I don’t have any south facing windows I don’t have the added heat from the sun in this miserable weather. And, since there’s another floor above me adding insulation from the summer heat (or winter cold) my utility bills are pretty minimal. This week in particular, I am extremely thankful that my windows don’t face South. The temperature in my apartment would be much higher and this month’s electricity bill would probably skyrocket due to running the AC to cool it off.

So, next time you step inside an apartment, take a moment to look out the window(s) and figure out which direction you’re facing before you fall in love with a place that might make you miserable or might increase your expenses simply because it faces a certain direction.