I should have known that it wouldn’t be so easy to leave this apartment complex. After searching for another five days, we are finding that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. My quest for a new place to live has been relentless. I have spent upwards of 10-12 hours a day on the internet searching for rentals all over this city. We have gone out multiple days in a row to view apartments, getting tours, listening to staff members drone on and on about the pleasures of living in their wonderful communities which are overpriced, poorly constructed and laden with criminals. Our apartment complex never looked so good after what we have seen this week.
We DID find one place that was good enough for us to put a deposit down to hold an apartment for the time being, as a last ditch effort. The problem is… we don’t want to settle. We have moved so much over the past eight years that we want to find a place where we are going to stay long term. I enlisted the help of a company called Apartment Rental Finders where you fill out a large questionnaire with all of your specifications and they send you a list of places that meet your criteria. They sent me 24 places to check out. Ironically, I had already found almost all of the places on their list on my own! I have even worked with a realtor but they weren’t much help either. It seems that everyone is in the market for rentals right now because they can’t afford to buy.
The day before yesterday, my Lyme Disease finally caught up to me and my body shut down. I knew that I had been pushing it so I was due for a day off. I was in pain, my head was pounding and I was taking pain meds like Chicklets. So, on Thursday (10/10/13) I decided to sleep. Needless to say, I slept for 24 straight hours. I only got up in 5-10 minute increments to get a drink or use the bathroom but then went right back to bed. I managed to eat three power bars, 2 apples, 2 containers of yogurt and down a little Gatorade but that was it. I would tell my mother that I was still alive, take my pills and then it was back to sleep for me. My body was DONE. Yesterday wasn’t much better. I was still groggy so I just took a shower and rested most of the day. A person with Chronic Lyme Disease simply cannot push themselves at the pace which I was going without their body eventually shutting down. I should be better by tomorrow.
Ironically, when Mom went to the office of our complex yesterday to turn in our letter to vacate, she had a nice talk with our property manager. A little background history for you about the relationship that we have with her is that she is not just the manager here, she is also our friend. We have been here for eight years and she has been here almost the entire time. She knows how sick I am and she has always gone out of her way to do as much as possible to make my life easier. For example, she even pulled out the entire air conditioning unit and had it replaced when there was the slightest indication of musty odor just so there would be no possibility of mold exposure for my compromised immune system. When she was pregnant for the first time many years ago, we attended a baby shower here on the complex for her. She is concerned that we haven’t found a place to live yet and she only wants the best for us. Not too many people can say that about the managers of their apartment complexes.
When Mom went to turn in the letter to vacate and she mentioned that we hadn’t found a place to live yet, the manager told her NOT to give her the letter. She said that if we did, then it would put our place up to be rented right away and we would be forced to be out on Dec. 1st. She would rather see us wait and go on a month-to–month if necessary because then we only need to give a 15 day notice and we would be free to go. That was priceless information. Any other complex would put the company first and not the tenant. She said that she knew she could rent our apartment quickly so we shouldn’t worry about meeting our 60 day notice. She was more concerned about our well-being. She also mentioned that there was another apartment here at the complex that would be much cheaper for us if we were willing to stay. Also, if we liked the other apartment and moved into it before our lease term was over, it was simply considered a transfer of apartments and there would only be a minimal transfer fee. She really didn’t want to see us leave and she knew that the only reason we were going was due to the cost.
So, now the dilemma begins. We were so convinced that it was time to leave this place due to the cost and the frequent increases in the rent. We have killed ourselves looking for a new place to live and now the entire thing may have come full circle right back to where we started in the first place. We may end up just switching apartments at the same complex for the gazillionth time! There are pros and cons to staying here so we will have to make a list and come to a decision fairly soon because the mental burden isn’t doing my Lyme Disease any favors.
I have always said that when you are overwhelmed and don’t know what to do you simply have to stop and ask the Lord for the answers. He typically puts someone or something in your path to show you the way. Maybe this chance encounter between my mother and the complex manager today was the sign that it is not our time to leave here just yet. We were beating our heads against a rock trying to force the solution to where we were going to live six weeks from now. Maybe the answer is we are already home.
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