Welp, that was a bust!

[azurelunatic]

Drove down 101 (my favorite) to see a possible place.

I have had a certain amount of impostor syndrome over Being A Grown-Up. This was ... well. I didn't feel like I was the incompetent one.

Really, my mind was made up after I drove around in search of a parking spot, found none, wound up at the management office and not the leasing office, and saw the shabbiness (no, Android, not stabbings) and breathed the sadness. There was no street parking left. Once I found the leasing office, the contrast between its shininess and the dingy look of the other grated.

Plus I was parked super illegally in the driveway. There were four other cars also parked badly, but they weren't blocking the handicapped spot as badly. (Based on the way my mobility is improving, I have not tried to apply for the hang tag or plates.)

I explained that no, the one I was interested in was not the 2nd floor studio as stairs are a Bad Idea (and I waved my cane) and I'm coming from a studio. Despite having clicked on the thing, apparently it came through wrong.

So we went to look at the 1st floor studio.

The architecture is unfriendly. One door was chained open across the edge of a portal. I cleared it but with some misgivings.

She unlocked the apartment and switched on the bathroom lights.

I poked my face in.

The bathroom was long and galley-style, combining the worst parts of tiny bathrooms with the worst parts of galley kitchens.

"No," I decided out loud.

"...Would you like to see the rest of the apartment?" she ventured.

I might as well. I liked the kitchen, though I was dubious about whether the 2/3 size fridge could pass the shelf removal test.

On the way back (to get the keys to the van to drive to the 1-bedroom) I asked about the laundry situation.

7-7? "That's a dealbreaker."

We didn't see any other apartments.

I wound up at work.

Comments

[twistedchick]

I think it's been a long time since I looked at apartments. What is 7-7?

[torrilin]

I'm guessing the laundry room has set hours, 7am to 7 pm. And yeah, that's a deal breaker.

[azurelunatic]

Such a deal breaker. I did not explain the part where asking me to just do it in the morning when it opens is sort of like telling a person with a more typical sleep schedule "But you can just get up at 3am to do it, right?" I just said that I typically do it around 10pm if I'm using the laundry room, and digressed a bit about the programmable all-in-one machine in-unit which does have reasonable restrictions on its hours of use as the spin cycle shakes the whole building. (Due to the hill, my ground level apartment is technically the second story as there is the basement with the parking garage and laundry room below. Also the office is a bunch of clueless ninnies for not pointing out there is a sidewalk on the far side of the building with only a few steps for basement access, when I complained about the steep fucking stairs. TAB bastards.)

[azurelunatic]

(This entry suffers from being composed as I fell asleep, so I wasn't making a ton of coherent sense.)

Laundry room is only open 7am to 7pm, which is very much not going to work with my sleep schedule.

[asciident]

Whoa a common laundry room with set hours?! Is that common down there? I never encountered it in Seattle (the only place I've rented without in-unit w/d), but maybe I just got lucky.

[azurelunatic]

I don't know how common it is, but my old shithole apartment in Phoenix instituted hours, ostensibly because of noise complaints. I suspect it's more common in vaguely crappy apartment complexes where there are a lot of noise complaints.

[asciident]

Huh. My first Seattle apartment was vaguely crappy, but there weren't a lot of people and the laundry room was on the first floor/basement (on a hill) so maybe that helped.

They sent a survey.

[azurelunatic]

24x7 access to laundry facilities (dealbreaker)
Available parking at leasing office (there was none)
Clear signage for leasing office (blocked by disastrous parking situation)
Accessible, stair - free paths (I indicated interest in a ground floor unit online, which clearly didn't come through; the leasing agent was very helpful upon hearing it was a requirement however)
Full size refrigerator which can be fully opened to move shelves without maintenance intervention (I could probably move the 2/3 size fridge in your studio myself)
The bathroom was terrible in every respect, particularly the way the toilet was inaccessible crammed between a wall and the horrible glass-doored tub. The bathroom was the first thing I saw and I told the leasing agent "No" on the spot before even looking at the rest of the apartment.
The leasing agent mentioned that there was some "service commitment" by name, but did not explain. That had no influence on my hasty departure from the property. She was very pleasant and helpful, and made recommendations which may suit better.

[fiddlingfrog.livejournal.com]

combining the worst parts of tiny bathrooms with the worst parts of galley kitchens.


I was picturing something where the toilet faces the shower/tub and you have to sidle in towards it because there's not enough room to walk.

[azurelunatic]

Not quite that bad. But airplane bathrooms have more arm room. It was not quite as terrible as the abysmal bathrooms at Al Hamra where there is about 18" of clearance between the sink and the wall, which you have to get past the sink to get to the toilet, but the average public bathroom stall has more space.