My husband and I are currently renting a room in a house where a friend of ours is also renting. We live in a small college town, and are fairly poor. Not as in almost homeless, just as in “We save up as much as we can and then spend it all on Hubby’s tuition”. Anyway, here’s the rant (with background and stuff).
Our car has been in the shop being looked at, and we just got it back. Not Good news. It needs a new transmission. We talked about it and decided that we’re probably not going to fix it (slight complications due to its having been a wedding present, but we’re reasonably sure his parents will understand). I am not happy about the idea of biking or walking to work/school from where we live indefinitely. It’s just far enough for lots of problems. For instance, biking in the winter we’d end up icicles by the end of the ride (you know, the movement is keeping you just barely warm enough while you bike, then you get off and can barely move). It’s hot, hot, hot in the summer, and springs are incredibly windy. Oh yeah, and did I mention that due, I suppose, to temperature, the wind, when the is one (often), is absolutely invariably a head-wind? You think I’m exaggerating, don’t you. I’m not. Northward biking in late morning-early afternoon, southward biking in the evening - no wind or a head wind, invariably. Well, okay, so sometimes it’s a cross-wind. Never a tail-wind though, heaven forbid.
So, we’re looking to move to a new place. More precisely, we’re looking for a new place. I called and I called and I called. The words “I wanted to know if you have any 2 or 3 bedroom houses or apartments for rent?” came out of my mouth so many times today, I wouldn’t be surprised if I say them in my sleep. (One more quick note: we live with a friend that will probably be moving with us.) I made an appointment to look at a 2 bedroom that will almost certainly be too small (I have a friend that lives in an apartment in the same complex and hers is tiny-ish), but it’s at least worth looking at. I decided not to make one for the 3 bedroom house with a rent almost twice that what we’re paying now. Most of the places on my list of realtors/renters said they didn’t have anything. And then… Hot Dog! I’m running an errand to the administration building on campus and I spot a flyer - 2 and 3 bedroom apartments for families and individuals, blah blah blah, call xxx-xxxx. So I call. And they have vacancies! Multiple vacancies even! The maintenance manager answers since the manager is not there, so I couldn’t find out many specifics. But he says the manager’s office hours include this very evening. Perfect. I call our roommate, and he agrees to come with us. I tell my husband. The guy on the phone mentioned something about a $25 fee for them to check our backgrounds (to make sure we’re not convicted felons, natch). I’ve never heard of that happening around here (tiny college town, ya know) but it’s not an immediate turn-off for going to look at the place.
Later, we go find the place. Okay, it looks nice from the outside. There are 3 buildings, each with 8-10 apartments in them. At least that’s what’s visible from the front in the dark. And we go by the office - oops, the manager couldn’t come today, she’s in the hospital. She apparently just had foot surgery, and it got infected today so she had to go back. Mr. Maintenance Manager is there. Well, he’s not allowed to show us or tell us anything specific, really. He tells us the apartments are great, that he just finished redoing cabinets on 5 of them (the empty ones). He tells us that a people were supposed to be moving in to a few of them, but the never paid for the background check thing. He asks if the manager gave us an application yet (no, we haven’t met the manager yet). He says the manager should be back in a couple days. He goes through these things a few more times (he didn’t really come off as a “people person”, he seemed vaguely nervous about talking to this many people). Ok, so we leave, a little disappointed in not getting to see the inside, but the outside looks nice. It’s definitely worth a second look. And then I ask Roommate what he thought.
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…
…
“Eh, too much paperwork”
Not “Well, it’s worth going back.”
Not “Oh my god, I don’t believe they want us to fill out paperwork! And I won’t ever subject to a background check just to rent an apartment! They either get my money or they don’t! The nerve!”
Just “Eh, too much paperwork. An application, and a background check…”
I don’t really swear in RL, I never picked up those speech patterns, so this is going to be a little experiment for me.
I fucking hate apathy! Goddamn son-of-a-bitch motherfucking limp-noodle apathy! I dated a guy that had chronic apathy - “Do you want to go see that movie?” “Eh…”/ “Hey, look, there’s an interesting play/concert/something involving going somewhere this weekend, wanna go?” “Eh…” There’s no reasoning with apathy - “But we don’t have to do anything for the background check, they do that themselves. And we don’t know how long the application is yet.” “Eh, still too much paperwork.” There’s no getting around apathy - “We’ll fill out the application.” “Too much trouble.”
We only had a couple of minutes of interaction on this, so it’s possible things aren’t as bad as they seem. Maybe if the application turns out to be reasonably short, he won’t mind. He’s not usually this apathetic. Then again, maybe the idea of having to fill out an application for an apartment seems unreasonable to him. I’m pretty sure he’s never had to do it before, maybe he just thinks he has some kind of inalienable right to, when being shown an apartment, say “yeah, ok, I’ll take it” and be handed the keys in exchange for the proper amount of money. Well, guess what, that’s their property you’ll be living on, it seems totally reasonable for them to want to know a little bit about you before you move in. Renting an apartment is just a wee bit different from (than?) buying groceries.
Okay, so much for my experiemnt in swearing. I think the results were vaguely satisfactory 
