divine angst

So our management company sent our lease renewal last week and they want to raise our rent 10% for us to renew. Ten percent! That’s, frankly, a lot for an apartment with 20-year-old appliances that gets STEAMING hot afternoon sun all year long. (And it’s fully $20 more per month than the high-end price they’re advertising on apartments.com for this unit.)

Mr. Angst and I are, accordingly, trying to find a new apartment. We’re sort of torn. We both want something vintage, preferably with hardwood floors and ceiling fans. We’d also like a two bedroom apartment, so we can have an office. But we also like our neighborhood a lot, and those sort of apartments in our neighborhood are…a little pricey.

Today, then, we hopped on the train to go look at a neighborhood not too far north with lots of affordable, relatively large apartments. It was not, actually, a pleasant trip. Mr. Angst didn’t like how far most of the places were from the train, and I was tense the whole time because I thought he hated the neighborhood (which I love because I think it is So Cute). As it turns out, he really just didn’t like how far it was from the train.

I’m looking, then, in other neighborhoods, now. There is affordable stuff out there, but not much of it is that much bigger or better than what we have, and I hesitate to move again (for the third time in about fourteen months) just because we can. It’s sort of frustrating, too. I really hate looking for apartments, and I hate calling management companies and dealing with people who are just looking for a commission. I just want a handy, convenient search engine where I can plug in exactly how much rent I want to pay, what the minimum square footage I want is, how many rooms or bedrooms I want, and what amenties I want–and have it spit out The Perfect Apartment.

So. I’m just so torn, between not wanting to move, but also being pretty unhappy in our apartment. And between not wanting to move right now just because I’m unhappy, but also realizing that we picked this apartment in a matter of minutes on a quick trip to this city almost a year ago, because we only had so much time to find a place. I hate that I don’t want to spend time here because it’s small and crowded, and that we aren’t really comfortable having people over because it’s really just so small and crowded and dingy, but I also don’t want to spend all the money on moving–boxes and movers and security deposits–when, in a year, when Mr. Angst has graduated, we might be able to afford something much nicer–and then we might want to move again.

Whatever the case, we can’t stay here at the rent they want to charge us. So we either talk them down or we move.