I’ve never even heard of a rental apartment that didn’t include a fridge and a stove, and I’ve rented in New Jersey, DC, Northern Virginia, and Chicago. I mean, it’s useless as a living space without those two things. And if I could afford to buy major appliances, I wouldn’t be renting, I’d be buying.
Dishwashers are a bonus, and I don’t think I’ve seen an apartment that had in-unit laundry (on-premise laundry, yes – typically in the building basement – or in-unit in some condos and rental houses/duplexes, but not in apartments).
I wouldn’t even consider an apartment without a fridge. What is my rent paying for?
I was there the first time (just visiting) in June 1998.
I lived there 2002/03. We stayed at Betsy’s for the first week then moved a short distance away, just up the hill from the Philharmonia in Vera.
For the summer months, electricity and water were good (16-20 hours per day). After Nov 1, it was spotty at best and by late November through March it was maybe 4 hours per day, though sometimes zero. For 2-3 weeks in January there was no gas at all. When the power was out, there was no water - it died within 10 seconds of the power going out. I think we used our stove just a few times. Most restaurants had items separated into “made with electricity” and “made with gas” since at least one was almost always not working.
I’ve been through four apartments in the last eight years,
All of them had refrigerator/stove standard. I never even thought to ask. All of them had dishwasher as well, though if one had lacked it I would have found it less surprising than the fridge or stove.
None had washer/dryer within the unit, which didn’t surprise me either.
Fridge and stove have always been standard in apartments I have rented. Heck, almost all of the houses that I have looked at to buy have had those appliances included.
I suspect this is like my company mentioning “free parking” as one of our employee benefits. It only sounds great if you don’t realize that the reason parking is free is because we are located in the suburbs. Every business in the area has plenty of free parking.
I’ve used rent.net and Craigslist to find apartments-- in fact, my current apartment was through Craigslist. I’ve lived in Washington state and southern California.
In Washington state, the places I looked at did not mention the appliances as perks, and the place we had had a stove, dishwasher, and fridge. We bought a microwave.
In southern California, many places mentioned specifically whether it included a fridge or if you needed to supply your own. My first place did not have one, and our move included a quick detour to my uncle’s to pick up their spare fridge. It was a second-floor walkup, and even with the stairs right out by the kitchen, it was a bitch to get in there.
My current place came with a full set of kitchen appliances. Which is good, because my ex-roomie had to take my uncle’s fridge with him to his new place, about an hour south of downtown LA.
I have rented in New york, Connecticut, Maryland and Southern California.
Southern California was the only market in which refrigirators weren’t standard in rental units. Used refrigerators were however, plentiful in the Pennysaver (I lived there before Craigslist).
I lived in two MA apartments during the 80s in the same city, and one came with a fridge, and my parents had to buy one for the other. Clearly there was no standardization there then.
Whereabouts in WI? I’ve rented in both Madison and Milwaukee, and the fridge has always been included. Dishwashers, sometimes yes, sometimes no; in-unit washers/driers usually aren’t (and are specifically called out when they are, otherwise it’ll just say “washer/drier facilities on site” or some such.
If you’re moving to a small town, though, things might be different - I can easily see there being different standards in a small rural town.
I’d be wary of anything that specifically called out a fridge - in my experience, they’re standard. Definitely cross-reference with rent.com or some other renting website - you’ll get more corporate, apartment building style listings (instead of private rentals), but you won’t get taken.
I think the safest thing to do would be to ask about the specifics. I kind of screwed myself over in one place, I was renting a room in a house but ASSUMED there’d be a shared kitchen. There wasn’t! A roomate had basically converted half of the bathroom into an ad-hoc kitchen. I hated it, but stayed for six months because it was super close to my work at the time, huge space for the price, and I knew I’d be relocating to another bus yard at the end of the year (but wouldn’t know what city till a month before). Once I found out where I’d be working I started looking for a new place, and am MUCH wiser now after that debacle.
So it doesn’t matter how much you see the word ‘apartment’ dont assume anything because the one thing you overlook and don’t hear mention of is the one hole in your apartment where an oven/fridge/shower should be :mad:
In Ontario, our experience was that stove/fridge was standard. In Montreal, at least, that isn’t generally the case, although areas where there are more students are more likely to throw those two in. The places that don’t seem to be more long-term/home apartments rather than 8 month temporary places. We rented our apartment 3 years ago and had to buy all of the appliances (in our case, there are hookups for washer/dryer/dishwasher…yay!)
We were in an apartment while our house was being built a couple of years ago. All the places we looked at had stove, fridge, dishwasher, and over the stove microwaves. Most also had washer/dryer hook-ups. We ended up renting a stacking w/d. We were only there around 6 months or so. I think it all depends on not only the area, but how old or new the apartments are. I wish I had the stove and fridge from my first apartment in the seventies. They were this awesome shade of turquoise!
Back when I was in school we looked at one apartment thet didn’t include a stove or refigerator. All the other ones did.
Now as a landlord with a duplex quite a few people that looked at the apt. were surprised that it included them. A couple people even asked about storing theirs in the garage since they wouldn’t need them for the apt.