As my ceiling has been leaking for a few weeks (almost 2 gallons of water came through my roof during the last big storm!), my landlord has told me I could break the lease and leave. I’m not horribly concerned about the ceiling -- it’s annoying to keep two large bins under my leak, but it seems fixable. The ceiling would have to get torn out, but that would only last a week or two. Not really something I would move for, I’m not that easily annoyed. Check out the photos. I will say, though, that it did worry me when he said I could break the lease -- landlords don’t do that. So it probably is worse than it looks.
I am taking him up on the offer, mostly just to have the chance to move to a cheaper place. (Well, that and the fact that he has crappy communication skills, even when his tenant's living space is technically violating building codes.) When I signed the lease in March, I thought I only had 3 more prerequisite classes to take to get into nursing school. I found out later that I had 7 to take, half of them being about or more than $1000 each. So I was a bit crunched, but it was still do-able. Moving to a place $150 cheaper will give me some breathing room, and I’m looking forward to it.
Where am I moving, you ask? Well as long as all the paperwork goes through on Tuesday as planned, I’ll be moving to Sheridan between Foster & Argyle. It’s a good price, and it’s a sublease with the end date of May 31st (perfect for leaving for Ohio). It’s a nice little studio. About 400 square feet. I repeat... little studio.
I hear some of you who know me say, “Hah! You? Move into a little studio? With all the stuff YOU have? No way!”
I don’t blame you, I know I have a ridiculous amount of crap. I laughed at myself when I checked the place out for the first time, I won’t lie. But I’ve got it all figured out. I did a floor plan in my anal-retentive-planner kind of way, and I think this will work. It will be a stretch (or, I suppose, a crunch), but my plan was to move into a little studio when I got to Ohio, anyway. Might as well get used to it now.
Anyway, my apartment is all boxed up again. I did love the place, but I always knew it was more than I needed. I’ll be renting a moving van next Thursday through Saturday. I want to do this over the course of a few days -- to gradually trickle my stuff into the place, and to keep me from going insane like I did last time -- and I want a smaller vehicle instead of a truck that I can park on the street while I take my time.
So here it comes, the plea for help -- anyone have next Saturday afternoon/ evening free? I’m not imposing an entire apartment full of stuff on anyone, no way. Most of it will be moved on Friday. I just need help moving the things I can’t do myself: mattress & boxsprings, small loveseat, endtables, and a small desk. And it all fits in the elevator, so you don’t even have to do stairs. We’ll probably make 2 - 3 trips, it shouldn’t be bad. And you’ll get food for your effort. It’ll be the easiest move you’ve ever helped with, I swear. Last time I had movers -- SO worth the money -- but with this being last minute, I couldn’t make it work. So... please help. [pouty face] :)
So that’s me right now. [whew] Oh, and I got my root canal -- it was fine, not traumatic, I just need to get my crown now. Maybe something platinum with a diamond, we’ll see what happens. The chemistry class is fine, a very nice, warm, quirky, grandfathery kind of guy is teaching it, and boy does he love teaching. It’ll be a good time, even if it is on Saturday mornings.
But back to the move -- they say bad things come in threes, whether that’s just how we perceive it or luck or what-have-you, who knows. And then I started thinking: I moved into the very first place Sivie & looked at when we moved to Chicago, and it seemed pretty great... until we found out that our landlord didn’t realize that being a landlord actually took work. And got some great pet squirrels and mice in the meantime. Then, instead of trying to find a place on my own last spring, I opted to take Mike’s terrific place in Rogers Park, almost sight unseen, and I loved it. And then the roof leaked enough for me to break a lease after only three months. This time, I got a call from my landlord on Thursday, was told I could break a lease, searched that day for a new place, saw two that night, and I’m going to be taking the first apartment I saw. ...I hope I’m not doomed. :)
There will be a housewarming party... correction, there may be a few housewarming parties, since my new place can seat... oh, let’s say... *five*... people comfortably. :) Yeah, no large potlucks at this place. But a few small ones can’t hurt anything. Details coming in a few weeks. Not like it’ll take me *that* long to set up the teeny place.
But all that said, I’m excited. No matter how much moving bites the big one sometimes, new beginnings are always fun & interesting.
So... I’m going to get back to packing. Hope your ceilings stay dry.
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