a hunt

I never intended for this blog to be solely about New York things but seeing as how I have no readers right now anyway, I doubt it matters.

Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City said something about how a woman in New York is always looking for one of three things: a job, an apartment, or a boyfriend. In my case, it is an apartment (though if anyone knows a great single guy, please pass him my way.)

I currently live with two roommates around my age. The lease is up at the end of the month. Both roommates have decided to move on (one to Queens and one to move in with her fiancee) so I have to move on as well. Of course, my first instinct was to keep the apartment, find two new eager beavers to move in and keep my furniture and my sanity in place. No such luck. The wonderful management company that owns our little building would charge me one month's rent to stay in an apartment in which I already reside. This is because a new lease would need to be signed and apparently the labor behind that is worth hundreds of dollars. There are also minimum income requirements to be met and since I don't work in finance or have a trust fund, my new roommates would have to make a minimum amount higher than my own salary in order for the three of us to qualify for said lease.

Now, I have never attempted to get an apartment in another state, but when I visited New York last September full of guts and gusto and determined to find my new apartment, I quickly learned about the fabulousness that is the housing market in Manhattan and all the headache inducing worrysome, I mean, warm fuzzy feelings that navigating said market produces. Rule #1, if you don't have a job you can't find a place to live unless you have a guarantor who lives in the Tri-State area. My folks on the Left Coast clearly don't make that cut. They also wanted six months rent up front but that is a horse of a different color.

Back to present day and keeping the tangents as short as possible, I can't afford to pay a fee for absolutely nothing so I am attempting to find a nice new little room in a nice little apartment where I can move myself and my nice little bedroom full o' stuff with as little hassle (read: money!) as possible. But, since this has been on my mind since July (read: I've been stressing about it for that long) I'm getting worn out. I saw a place on Sunday that I loved. Details excluded, this place has pretty much everything I want: nice roommates, close proximity to transporation and all things necessity related, a good price, etc. Now I'm waiting to see if they want me.

So I feel like I am pledging a sorority, keeping my fingers crossed, and really not wanting to do this again a year from now. Oh well, I guess that's the price I pay to be a little worker bee in this bee hive made of skyscrappers and lights. And a little bitter side note, if I hear one more time that a girl is moving out because she's moving in with her boyfriend, I might scream. Just a little.