On moving....

I have to confess a weakness/neurosis of mine... I love looking at houses/apartments/townhomes.  There is a wonderful webiste called craigslist.com that feeds my habit.  I will and do spend outrageous amounts of time browsing their for rent and for sale listings just to see what's out there and to imagine what I would do with it if it were mine.  My favorite listings are the ones that include floorplans, but I am not picky. 


So obviously, when we talked about possibly moving... in about 6 months from now... I went a little crazy, as Dana can attest to, and spent even larger amounts of time browsing for the perfect place... pretty silly since we wouldn't be able to get any place I actually found.. no one will hold a rental for you for 6months!! Anyways, I just couldn't help myself and it was a lot of fun... free entertainment for me, yes I am a very cheap date!!  So, amid all this looking and planning and fantasizing an idea struck and rooted with the speed of lighting!! Why wait the 6months to move if we could find a cheaper place now and save loads of money for those 6 months?!?!?!  Doesn't that sounds like a brilliant idea?!?!?!? I thought so too..


So with renewed gusto I paraded a whole fleet of listings for Dana's approval; different sizes, locations, prices, amenities, you name it, I found it. But we were still waffling around a bit, after all :

1. Dana absolutely hates moving
2. We were going to have to downsize, and what's the fun in that
3. What about Josh?!? He would have to move too, 6mo. ahead of schedule!!
4. Is our credit good enough to get a new place!??!?  (we have really good credit, I just like to obsess about things!!)

So we devised a brilliant and sinister plan... we would take 2 weekends before we had to give notice to our current landlord, and tour some of these properties, just to see what we thought and if anything screamed at us "I AM YOUR NEW HOME, RENT ME NOW!!!"  Lo and behold that's exactly what we did... we looked at about 10 places, maybe more, it all became a blur at one point... and found THE place!! We were so excited, great location, great apt complex, lots of amenities, really nice office people, the works!!  Yeahy for us, we are so awesome!!  But we just had to look at one more place before making the decision....


Disaster struck, this other place was way cheaper, sligthly bigger and in a non apt complex (which really is a plus) ... sigh.... after a tearful goodbye to our PERFECT place (which now I can say really wasn't all that perfect but oh so cute!!) we went for it.  Selling feature for us?!? besides the low price?!? it has a laundry room!! not a laundry closet, but a laundry ROOM!!  I mean, can you blame us, who can resist that?!?!?


Fast forward 4 weeks, we are here and moved in, mostly..... it's a lot more cramped that we imagined, especially since Josh is here with us, but all of it fits, which is nothing short of miraculous if you ask me.  Even though, poor Josh, the room he is in is basically one giant store room, our boxes, his boxes, the exercise bike and 2 TVs! 


I always forget how stressful moving is, my brain must just erase all those horrible things that must be done when one moves, the utilities exchange, the new internet set up, changing your address everywhere, the upfront costs of moving, they always want deposits and such.... Adding to all of those, this time around we have dealt with some unforseen complications such as:

1. Our bank just decided to mark our rent check as fradulent and cancel it, without checking with us or anything, then refused to pay for the returned check fee which we were charged by our landlord, no worries, we are changing banks, take that WellsFargo!!
2. We got a notice from our landlord saying we didn't pay all of Octobers rent "You owe us $425" no we don't, we moved in on the 16 so it's only half month's rent, which we did pay.... many phone calls and stress ensued
3. They misplaced Josh's credit check fee.. much annoyance on their part and surprise on ours till it was all figured out... sigh... really!?!?! can't anything go right with this move?!?!?
4. We just received another notice saying we didn't pay for November's rent, "Please remit the total amount owed and another $65 for being so late" No we don't, we payed for 1 and 1/2 month's rent up front instead of first and last month, somebody PLEASE read our contract, for Pete's sake!!! More phone calls and more stress ensues..... I think I  need a vacation...

Makes you wonder what they are doing in that Accounting department, playing russian roulette I am sure... "which one of our tenants will receive a mistaken invoice for money they don't owe us??!?!? and the lucky winner is Apt 1 at The Crest.. ding ding ding!!! Twice in a row!! woot aren't they lucky?!?!? "


Things I have learned that hope I won't forget for the next time we move:

• It takes a lot more money to move than one thinks
• Yes, it will take you hrs on the phone to do easy things like switch your utilities from your old place to your new place
• When measuring a room to fit your furniture in, please remember that other things go in there as well.. such as but not limited to : chairs, lamps, giants bags of packing peanuts, giant rolls of bubble wrap, boxes for shipping, 3-drawer carts... oh and you also need walking room!!
• Make lots of friends so you have more people to help you move!! Thank you Callen, Sandra and Aaron!!
• It takes a lot longer to pack up the "few things left" than you thought
• STOP BUYING STUFF!!!!

Ok, done with all this now....