for those of you who are new to my plurk: I moved to Albuquerque in November, mostly because I wanted to get the fuck out of Texas ASAP. even though this was a good decision, the apartment I landed in is overpriced, as crappy as hell, and in a bad location

(no joke I went through a month and a half without heating, and then nearly 3 months without A/C)

I need to give this building 60 days notice that I'm moving out, which means I need to get that form from their office (might walk there during my break today) and turn it in to them before Sept 1st

so starting now I have about 3 months to find a new place

this... shouldn't be too difficult considering I can get an equivalent apartment in a better part of town for significantly cheaper, because I'm being absolutely hosed on rent right now

ofc I'd like to get something at least slightly better if I can, but we'll see how that shakes out! school for kids starts next week and school for university starts on the 18th, so I'm anticipating apartment prices are going to probably drop a little

I figure I'll be doing good if I can find a new place at least by the first full week of October, but earlier would be great too because it means I'll have plenty of time to move my stuff

(still going to have to hire movers for my furniture though....)

I know I talked in a few plurks before about looking for a condo, but I'm in an uncomfy spot where I could afford one but it'd be either about the same as the rent I'm currently paying or higher. which isn't ideal, so I think I'd rather wait another year or two before looking into actual ownership of something

gives me time to save up more, get a better job, etc
(and it doesn't help that the realtor here that is related to my dad's gf has been useless. he's literally just sending me the first zillow links that pop up. one of the places was in Kentucky.)

plus if I actually land in a decent apartment I wouldn't mind staying there, I just need out of the one I'm in because... this current one has been bad all around, I could spend quite a while ranting about it

I also tried looking on Facebook Marketplace for the first time and it's like.... christ why does anyone recommend searching there, the UI is horrible and the site lags like hell

HMM the good news is that I think I quality for some of these places with income restrictions, since the upper limit goes up a little every year

jsyk every time I sit down and look at apartment listings the experience is basically spending hours with my sanity slowly dribbling out of my ears

I found one place with very cheap 2 bedrooms but I have to call back on Monday and see if anyone turned in their 30 day notice to move out since they're all full up
but I DID find another place that's a larger 1 bedroom than what I have and also comes with W/D hookups, however it's only like $60 off of what I'm currently paying for rent lol

honestly it'd be better for me to check these websites once a week going forward, not THAT much is going to change from day to day

meanwhile my downstairs neighbors have been letting multiple kids literally scream and run around on their porch. it is past 9 pm btw. it is DARK outside.

ohhh my god I got lucky and the place with the cheap 2 bedroom apartments has an opening??? I'm going to leave work early to zoom over there and grab their application, they only do paper ones unfortunately

it's a ground floor one which has its pros and cons, I really prefer a second level apt for the extra security, but I can't turn my nose up at it for this price

OH SHIT this place ALSO has W/D connections

yeah I can live without it being on the second floor hjlgjkl

it's a great location too, there's a big grocery store only like 5 mins or less of a drive away... where I live now it's like 10 mins to a small version of that same store

and I think they'll reserve it for me if I put in the deposit too..... this is really happening

shit maybe I oughta go during lunch to get there asap lmao

in fact I'mma do that

nvm, that was a bust. I got there and was told that no, it's not a market rate apartment, they have to fill low-income slots first and I'm not low income enough to qualify

that was a total of 40 mins of driving all because the lady on the phone was mistaken

she said she'd call me if a market rate one opens up but I have no way of knowing if it will or not.......

now I'm hot and grumpy b/c I've had a headache all day already. I'm going to eat lunch soon and try to relax.

this is the notebook I'm looking for writing down my apartment search info btw... an old Neopets one I still had lying around lmao

so it's been.... a week and a half with no changes to speak of on these apartment listing sites, it's hard to remind myself that I have plenty of time with the search since I started so early

I'm really hoping the one I have my eye on will drop their prices but it might not happen for another week, or possibly until September... if it happens at all

why are apartments with W/D hookups so hard to find 😫

sometime this week I'll walk to my current apt office and ask for that notice of moving out form that they need from me, otherwise I guess there's not much I can do this week

in a way it's a relief though because looking through all these sites is a slog, it means I get to be lazy for a while longer

I used my lunch break to walk over to my apt office and ask for the 60-day notice letter I was TOLD they had there.... the lady that was there was like 'oh nah you can just send us an e-mail'

why'd you tell me on my letter about my lease being up that I needed to ask for a form then?!

anyway I have over 2 weeks to compose an e-mail about it so there's really no hurry lol

plus it was only 85 when I took that walk so it wasn't burninator hot outside and that helped, I'm just whining

lmfao I checked Zillow today and my current apartment building is on there.... with 13 available apartments. that is an insane number

most places have like, 5 max open

really speaks to how terrible this place is if everyone's moving out

I had to call the cops on a creepy trespasser in my unit (the cops didn't show up before the guy left) so like. I'm. I'm feeling a little more anxious about getting out of here

OKAY I sent the office my move-out letter through the resident portal thing, which I know will e-mail them. I am fucking DONE with this place

I'm trying to get this Friday off of work, if I do I might take Simba to the vet to get his yearly shots so I can have that documentation if the next place needs it
(this one never asked for it lmao)

LMAOOO THEY ASKED WHY I'M MOVING oh that was a CHUNKY paragraph I wrote

I was in such a hurry that I sent it from the wrong e-mail address, at this point I don't even care

I found a new option to add to my list of potential apts, but it's right next to the local FBI offices lol. I'm kind of like. wondering if that's preferable because it'll encourage the neighbors to behave or bad because ACAB

(it's about $3-$4 more than my potential top option rn and also doesn't have a gate so I might not end up inquiring anyway)

speaking of, I tried calling my top option and had to leave a message ... maybe I should tour this other place on Friday instead

okay the ACAB place actually picked up, they don't have any open for touring at the moment but I left my phone number with her... their soonest openings are mid-September which would work great for me

she told me to check one of the apartment websites for pictures but none of them had actual unit pictures anywhere lmfao

at this rate I really will be taking Simba for shots on Friday if I can't get anything else lined up

sooo maintenance has been working on the stairs up to everyone's apartments again and got to mine about an hour ago. but like.... they didn't tell people they'd be working on the stairs??? I got zero communication about it

what if... I needed to use the stairs.

I know I'm WFH but it's been every stairway on this side of the building so ???

lollll my current building asked if I'd be open to staying here if they negotiated lower rent for me.... that answer's going to be a 'fuck no'

there are just way too many downsides to living in this building, I know moving is a goddamn hassle but lower rent isn't going to make those problems magically go away

christ, how the fuck is it that several of these apartments I'm looking into haven't contacted me back. it's deeply unprofessional and means even if you don't have openings you're burning a potential future customer?

like at least send a message saying 'sorry we're full' or maybe update your websites with the latest info so you don't have to mess with as many calls, thanks

I put in a tour request tomorrow afternoon at a place, so as long as they don't call to cancel it I'll go take a look.... they have a waitlist but I'm hoping once I'm there I can ask if it's terribly long

WELP I called the place beforehand and I'm glad I did, they don't have any available units to tour right now :/ he put me on the waitlist but there's 2 people ahead of me and their next open apartment at all isn't until October

I'm now on waitlists at 2 different places

why is it so hard to find a good apartment.......

omg so I lucked out and found two more places at the end of the day on Friday, I got in contact with one of them today and I'm going to tour it after work!!

the rent actually includes all utilities except electric, and they have an opening at the end of September... it's a hugely good deal actually. the location isn't as great as the second one I contacted, so depending on THEIR prices and availability I might not end up going with this exact place

(both are owned by the same company so the rental price might not be hugely different tbh)

okay the tour went really well, the building's only 4 years old, has nearly new appliances and everything... it sacrifices a little living space for a slightly bigger kitchen + storage (an actual pantry!) which I think I can handle fine

it's in a quiet area (on the growing outskirts of the city basically) and while the porch is smaller it feels more private because the buildings aren't crammed in

I still want to wait for the other place to get back to me but this one is looking really good

christ I'm really eager to check out this other building, but I've tried 3 (!) different phone numbers for them and contacting them online multiple times with no response.... seriously considering just showing up in person

I might even go do it today or tomorrow after work. I want to check ASAP since I found a site claiming their prices are better than the new building I just looked at

holy shit I FINALLY got a hold of the second building! the prices are actually about $50 cheaper, rent still is everything but electric, still has a W/D in the unit, and it's like... 5 sq feet bigger? and closer to the grocery store and etc

the only downside is they don't have anything available for me to tour until the end of September, so I'd be applying sight unseen (though most apts don't let you see the actual unit until it's move-in ready)

Iiii might go for this one instead, and worse comes to worse I'm pretty sure the company would let me transfer my application to the other building

hnngh okay! application is in for this cheaper building, I picked an apartment with a move-in date of 10/08

I'm definitely going to drive there and at least look at the outside of the building, probably on the 1st since it's a day off and there's a possibility the office might be open to chat with 'em

but I was able to confirm via google maps that the building is a decade old or less. it didn't exist in 2014. so that's also a great sign... it's still pretty new and won't be a run-down place

I even went ahead and asked for a quote from a moving company to get my furniture moved to the new place /o/

oh yeah, I swung by the apartment building I applied to today... ofc the office was closed for labor day but I got a good look at the outside at least, it is indeed a nice new building in a quiet neighborhood, with shopping only a 2-3 minute drive away

so the location is super good