Apartment Hunting Highs and Lows

My planned apartment-hunting trip, which had originally been scheduled for the weekend before last, ended up being delayed to this past weekend. It's probably just as well, because the traffic I ran into picking my friend up from O'Hare was absolute hell. Nothing like being in a slowly rolling parking lot in July in Chicago in mid-afternoon on a 90-degree day. Without functional air conditioning in my car. I was just as glad not to turn around and drive back to Chicagoland the next day, believe me.

In any case, since I had to pay for one night of a hotel stay that I never used last weekend, I took off a little early from work on Friday, ran some errands, and then headed out to Evanston with my daughter in tow. I deliberately drive up Lakeshore Drive, not only because I figured (rightly) that the traffic there couldn't possibly be any worse than the traffic on the freeway but also in hopes of driving a stake through any lingering doubts my little snowflake had about moving to the Windy City. She loved the drive up Lakeshore and took some pictures out the windows, like this one of Soldier Field.

She was even crazier about Evanston, and kept raving about how green it is as we drove up Sheridan Avenue (what Lakeshore turns into on the north side of Chicago) on our way to campus. Personally, I don't think it looks any greener than the nicer parts of the 'Zoo, but it is pretty. I got us a little lost trying to find a parking structure and get to campus, since I still find downtown Evanston confusing, with a lot of streets that run at weird angles and a lot of one-ways, but there's only so lost you can be with a map. I got us where we needed to go eventually and manged to fit in a few important tasks like opening a bank account. Since I'm on a budget here, we stayed at a discount-chain motel in Morton Grove, the second suburb west of Evanston along Dempster Street, and it was actually slightly less shabby and depressing than I feared. It seemed clean, at least. I was too tired and footsore to go looking for a restaurant, so we just ordered from a pizza place.

We got out of there and checked out on Saturday morning in plenty of time for the appointment with the apartment search service. I managed to find some free parking pretty close to their office, and me and my girl stopped off at a coffee shop for what was there called a "redeye": a big cup of dark-roast coffee with a shot of espresso thrown in for extra octane. At the apartment search office, the agent mistook us for sisters or roommates (neither the first nor the last time that happened over the weekend) so I had to re-explain our situation and what we were looking for. She took us out to a few places, but one lady wasn't home, so we decided to have some lunch, look at another place I found on craigslist, and knock around campus for a while waiting for the apartment agent to call me back with a time to see the last place.

We went for lunch to an Asian noodle place called Zoba, which offers Japanese, Chinese, and Thai dishes as well as curries and some other stuff whose provenance I didn't really recognize. I had a ginger beef with homemade noodles that was really delicious, along with the best gyoza I've ever had, and my little snowflake, being vegetarian, had a tofu red curry with homemade noodles and little vegetable egg rolls. After lunch, we went to check out the place from craigslist, but it was kind of small for a two-bedroom and the neighborhood looked just a little too rough for me to be comfortable with my 14-year-old daughter walking around alone there. Not terrible, but... there was a pawn shop at the end of the street. Not a real great sign. We headed back to downtown Evanston and went to walk around campus for a while. Again, my girl was pretty impressed. She took lots of nice pictures, including this one of the really impressive old part of the library. The apartment agent finally picked us up to look at one last place, but it was way too small for the price. Decision time had come at last, and I decided to go with a large 2-bedroom unit in one of the old 1920s courtyard buildings that are all over in Evanston and the northside neighborhoods. We took care of all the business for that and then headed home.

Now I am just waiting for the management company to approve the application, and are these people ever giving me heartburn. Right off the bat, they asked me for a co-signer. My response was basically, "Are you kidding me?" The woman says that they require at least two years of employment, so I respond that my application clearly indicates I've been with my current employer for five years. She says that since I'm relocating I'm going to be quitting that job. I respond that I have a guaranteed five-year fellowship, and she says it's not on the application. I reply that the application didn't ASK for that information and offer to fax her the offer letter. I hear nothing for hours after faxing that over, so I call back and get someone else. She says I will still have to have a co-signer because they require two years of "current employment" and plus, there are a "couple problems" on my credit record. Oh? I check my record every year, because there are always, always errors on it, so I ask what the problems are. She says that there are collection accounts, but claims she can't give me any details because they have some kind of agreement with the reporting agency. So, I politely inform her that per the Fair Credit Reporting Act, if someone denies you credit based on information given in your credit history, they have to provide you with the appropriate notice so you can get a copy of your report from the agency who issued it. She hems and haws. She promises to call me back the next morning, which would be Wednesday. I decided to pull my credit last night by signing up for a trial with one of those credit protection companies. I immediately could see which agency the management company was pulling its information from, and it showed two past collection accounts, both disputed and both closed, totaling less than a third of one month's rent on the apartment I want. Hmmm... Wednesday morning came and went with no call, so I call back. I try to explain once again to this dimwit how a fellowship is not a job and how I will not ever be able to prove two years of "current employment" within the Chicago area because I'll be on fellowship, not working. I also ask her to confirm that her report shows what mine does, that the only "collection" accounts are both disputed and closed. She responds yeah, but there is still a balance due on them. I remind her, as patiently as I possibly can at this point, that the total balance of the supposed collection accounts is less than one-third of one month's rent and furthermore, they are BOTH disputed AND marked as closed. At this point, she starts in with the "please stop picking on me" voice that downtrodden employees scared to death of losing their jobs use when they are afraid to make a judgment call, and says that her general manager, the only one authorized to override their "rules," is on vacation and will be back Friday. She will make it her absolute TOP priority to talk to him about it first thing when he comes back on Friday. Frankly, I do not find all this remotely confidence-inspiring, but I will see what happens Friday. I will be pretty steamed if they make me give them a co-signer, given that I've been employed steadily for five years and have pretty fair credit, especially in the past year or two. I didn't need a co-signer to get the apartment I live in now, or my credit card account, for heaven's sakes. Yeah, the one that shows on my credit report as being in good standing...