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bobula posted:I'm trying to determine how it would be living on $860 a month, rent/utilities/gas included. Rent, gas, pets, etc. is going to take $1040 and I make $1600/mo, sometimes $2000 depending on the work. I really have very little idea how much things like laundry, food (cooking at home), toilet paper and household essentials and all that cost. I'll be living in the north Long Beach (CA) area, so if anyone has any basic guidelines it'd be appreciated. You can live on like $100 of food a month, but you won't be happy. A bachelor budget that has worked for me is $5- $10 per day, i.e. $150 -$300 for food per month. Add another $100 for incidentals (cleaning supplies, toilet paper, soap, and liquor) on top of that. Laundry shouldn't be anymore than $5-$10 a week if you're doing coin-op
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Feb 6, 2012 20:05
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So I'm looking to move out of the basement (actually the second floor, but who's counting  ) and wondering what'd be a good city to move to. I currently live in rural bumfuck New Jersey and have no attachments to the location; my job is work-from-home and pays reasonably well (although I'd probably still be living with roommates) so literally my only concerns are cost-of-living and the local culture (I'm 23, so anything that isn't conservative/populated primarily by crotchety old people  ). I'm keeping an eye on this thread, but does anyone have any recommendations?
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Feb 6, 2012 22:57
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I moved long-distance (drove about 2,000 miles) with a cat several years ago, and the vet prescribed a very mild sedative. I ended up not using it because the cat, which was generally well-behaved and calm, didn't seem upset afterall. Speaking of which, my husband and I moved a couple years ago to a townhouse, and our (different/new) cat freaked. He is about 5 now, so 3 then, and he was a big wimp about everything. It took him about a week to quit hiding under things and another week to start exploring. Now we're getting ready to move to a house with about twice the space, and I'm worried he will go through the same thing. I do have some advice for nervous cats though: put them in an enclosed room at first with their litter box, food, and water; give them a blanket to hide under; go in often and reassure them; introduce them slowly to the rest of the place; and finally, if you have a sofabed, make sure they are not hiding deep inside it when you close it up  I guess it's just good to remember that some animals will need an adjustment to their new place.
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Feb 6, 2012 23:03
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Thanks for the feedback! I will call the vet this week and see what she thinks - one of our cats is pretty chill, the other is politely referred to as "feisty". Whee.
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Feb 8, 2012 01:15
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How big of a dealbreaker would a 5-year old misdeameanor assault & battery be on a rental application? It's the only stain, credit score is 685 and I clear the income requirements.
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Feb 8, 2012 21:57
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Completely depends on the company. I think my company has a 5 year lookback on misdemeanor (non sexual) assaults.
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Feb 8, 2012 21:59
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The 5 year anniversary of the conviction is coming up in a few weeks, hmm perhaps I should wait for that before applying.
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Feb 8, 2012 22:06
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This is kind of bordering on a legal question, but I figured I'd post it here: The "landlord" (it's a faceless evil corporation) of my last apartment is charging me a $150 cleaning fee due to "entire apartment dirty; misc items left". This is, of course, bullshit since the place was practically spotless when we left it aside from some spots on the carpet (there was a separate charge for this, but whatever). As far as I can tell from Virginia's tenant/landlord laws, charging for cleaning is not permitted unless excessive damage has been done. Anyone got experience handling something like this? I'm thinking about telling them to get lost unless they can produce an itemized list.
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Feb 11, 2012 21:32
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I know we have people in here who've talked about this issue before, so look back in previous pages. In any case you should definitely run this by the legal questions thread as well because they'll be able to tell you specifically what you can/can't do.
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Feb 11, 2012 21:46
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That situation is also why you always take pictures of every single square foot of an apartment the day you move in and the day you move out.
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Feb 11, 2012 21:47
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psydude posted:Anyone got experience handling something like this? I'm thinking about telling them to get lost unless they can produce an itemized list. A couple points to clarify here: 1) Are they charging you (ie, asking you to pay for it) or are they withholding a security deposit you already paid? Not giving them money is much simpler than getting it back from them. 2) When did you move out? Generally there is a time limit on a landlord furnishing documentation like that itemized list. Often this is 15-30 days. If they haven't given you the required documentation in that time, it often means they are out of luck even if you took a poo poo in the sink. Generally speaking, you should be able to find a tenant's rights book/website for your area. Read it through, and work out what documentation they are supposed to provide you, the time frame for them to do it, and what penalties are involved if they fail. Once you have this information, you can draft a letter to the company/management saying that you think their claims are bullshit, and also that you feel they may be in violation of X and Y statute. Most landlords, and especially property management companies, are not going to risk dragging the whole thing into court over $150. They rely on people just paying up, and if you don't (and sound like you know enough to be a pain) then they'll back off. As an example, in Massachusetts a landlord has 30 days to provide an itemized list of damages with copies of receipts, estimates, or bills sworn under the penalty of perjury. If they miss any part of that, they can be held responsible for triple the deposit!
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Feb 12, 2012 01:48
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Yeah, they're witholding my security deposit, buy it was only $100 so I'm thinking that I'll just let them have it and refuse to pay the rest. E: The one thing I am concerned about is them selling it to collections. I do realize that this would actually be easier to beat because a collections company wouldn't waste time and money to send a lawyer to small claims court over such a small amount, but it would still be a pain in the rear end. psydude fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Feb 13, 2012 |
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Feb 12, 2012 22:58
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Yep, they said they'd hand it off to collections. I did ask to see the formula used to calculate the carpet replacement as well. My roommate just wants to rollover on it. And since it's such a small amount split between us it doesn't bother me too much. If it were just me, I'd tell them to piss off since I'm a rather vindictive person. I did, however, take the liberty of notifying Visa and Mastercard that they were violating their service agreement by charging tenants a surcharge to pay their bills online.
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Feb 13, 2012 15:54
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psydude posted:
Were they using a third party service to accept credit cards? Most landlords who allow credit card payments do this, as its a way around the surcharge prohibition. The fee is technically for the third party to handle the payments.
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Feb 13, 2012 16:01
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Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:Were they using a third party service to accept credit cards? Most landlords who allow credit card payments do this, as its a way around the surcharge prohibition. The fee is technically for the third party to handle the payments. No, it was actually built into their corporate central portal.
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Feb 13, 2012 16:32
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I'll be moving from Boston to Charleston, SC in a few months with my girlfriend. We just started looking at moving truck prices and holy goddamn poo poo they are expensive. Even the smallest truck is like $1200 not including fuel. Am I looking in the wrong places or is this about what I should expect? If it costs that much, I'm tempted to just sell all our furniture, rent an SUV and drive down only our most important stuff (and buy everything else in SC).
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Feb 13, 2012 21:00
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Not sure that you're going to do any better than that. We moved from Atlanta to Boston and ended up using 'U Pack', which is one of the pod companies. It ended up costing us about $1800 for two cubes (About 700 cubic feet) at the end of the day, which was cheaper than what we worked out a truck + fuel would be. Ditching as much as you have and starting fresh is probably a good option. The only thing that makes moving worthwhile is if you have some nice furniture or a lot of sentimental stuff. If you have a car, see what it would cost you to rent just a trailer?
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Feb 13, 2012 21:16
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Ashcans posted:Not sure that you're going to do any better than that. We moved from Atlanta to Boston and ended up using 'U Pack', which is one of the pod companies. It ended up costing us about $1800 for two cubes (About 700 cubic feet) at the end of the day, which was cheaper than what we worked out a truck + fuel would be. Yeah, I was afraid that would be the case. Neither of us have a car, so we will have to either rent a car or fly down there. It looks like renting a car + fuel will still be cheaper than two airplane tickets...and we can take some small stuff with us. Neither of us really have much in the way of nice furniture. She has a nice queen mattress/frame that would be a shame to get rid of, but otherwise we are pretty much poor young people with Ikea furniture. Thanks for the price quote, that helps put it in perspective 
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Feb 13, 2012 22:38
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polyfractal posted:I'll be moving from Boston to Charleston, SC in a few months with my girlfriend. We just started looking at moving truck prices and holy goddamn poo poo they are expensive. Could you do a UHaul? Don't actually use UHaul, get a Budget rental truck, I think they dinged me for less than $500 (and I bought maybe $300 of gas) from Dallas to Columbia when I moved in 2010.
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Feb 14, 2012 03:32
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Stew Man Chew posted:Could you do a UHaul? Don't actually use UHaul, get a Budget rental truck, I think they dinged me for less than $500 (and I bought maybe $300 of gas) from Dallas to Columbia when I moved in 2010. Unless I'm doing something horribly wrong, the cheapest Budget truck is $1000. Penske and UHaul clock in around $1200. 
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Feb 14, 2012 04:10
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polyfractal posted:Unless I'm doing something horribly wrong, the cheapest Budget truck is $1000. Penske and UHaul clock in around $1200.
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Feb 14, 2012 05:15
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polyfractal posted:Yeah, I was afraid that would be the case. Neither of us have a car, so we will have to either rent a car or fly down there. It looks like renting a car + fuel will still be cheaper than two airplane tickets...and we can take some small stuff with us. Yeah, when I moved from Florida to Oregon, I sold all of my furniture to a co-worker and donated all my books to Goodwill. I still ended up with almost 40 boxes of stuff (mostly kitchen-related) and I packed all that really well and had it shipped via UPS for something around $800. Then I packed all my really expensive stuff (tv, computer, various electronics) and other things I didn't want to ship into my Jeep and drove cross-country with just that. Took about 4 solid days and all my boxes from UPS arrived the morning after I got to my new place. We (mom made the trip with me) decided not to do the Uhaul thing because neither of us had experience driving either a Uhaul truck or anything towing a trailer behind it and we wanted to enjoy the trip without worrying about that aspect, and I checked into the cost to do one large POD to keep my furniture and the guy estimated it to be around $5k to store and ship. Really just wasn't worth it *and* it gave me the chance to slowly build up new/'new' furniture as I need it (which was mostly bedroom stuff since my roommate already had living room/dining room furniture before I even got here). Almost all my previous furniture had been a whole lot of handmedowns that I hadn't bought for myself and I really just had no need, for example, for a fancy 5-piece bedroom set. It really just boils down to how much you value what you have and how much it'd cost to move it vs. how much it'd cost to sell and replace.
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Feb 14, 2012 05:34
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xeria posted:Yeah, when I moved from Florida to Oregon, I sold all of my furniture to a co-worker and donated all my books to Goodwill. I still ended up with almost 40 boxes of stuff (mostly kitchen-related) and I packed all that really well and had it shipped via UPS for something around $800. Then I packed all my really expensive stuff (tv, computer, various electronics) and other things I didn't want to ship into my Jeep and drove cross-country with just that. Took about 4 solid days and all my boxes from UPS arrived the morning after I got to my new place. I probably mentioned it earlier in this thread, but I did this to move from Indiana to Idaho. It was cheaper/easier but mostly worked out for me because my fiance was already in Idaho with his stuff and we got married a few months after my move (so we got wedding presents to replace some of what I sold). Pretty happy with the choice though. It was so much nicer to drive a normal car cross-country than a big truck and I didn't have anything I was really attached to as far as furniture went.
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Feb 14, 2012 07:12
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Any good online resources besides craigslist for finding roommates? Craigslist won't let me post an ad with a crappy pre-paid phone, so all I can do is stalk the postings.
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Feb 14, 2012 12:20
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Lava Lamp posted:Craigslist won't let me post an ad with a crappy pre-paid phone, so all I can do is stalk the postings. Have you tried using a google voice number instead?
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Feb 14, 2012 15:24
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For anyone moving long distances, I recommend these guys http://www.upack.com/ . I rented a crate to move all of my stuff from New England down to DC about two years ago. I was able to get about 1.5 rooms worth of stuff with room to spare inside and it cost me 400 bucks total. MUCH easier than getting a uhaul and doing it myself, cheaper too.
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Feb 14, 2012 20:34
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polyfractal posted:I'll be moving from Boston to Charleston, SC Hey future Charleston goon. If you decide to land in west ashley I know the area really well and can advise you on places! I hope you are ready for the heat and humidity. /aim in profile
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Feb 15, 2012 02:51
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Landlord/property manager for a privately-owned property here. When emailing possible future landlords about properties, use proper grammar and spelling, and READ THE GODDAMNED AD. I got a lot of emails that looked like they were written by a retarded five year old and asked questions that were clearly answered in the ad ("how much do u charge 4 rent? how many bdroms?  ) If you can't even read a craigslist ad the whole way through, I don't trust you to read your lease. If you give me the impression you're illiterate I'm going to assume you can't read the lease either.Be polite and proofread. And for the love of god, if you make an appointment to tour the property show up on time. Lots of goons are asking about good cheap furniture. Go to Haverty's. Most of my furniture is from Haverty's and it's pretty great quality for not a lot of money. My couch has been subject to every kind of abuse you can imagine (food spills, drink spills, puke, being slept on by many drunk people) and you can't even tell. They offer a scotch-guard coating that's magical. I'm looking for an apartment myself right now, actually. I found new tenants to live in my place for the '12-'13 school year and had them sign leases THEN got a job offer in the area so I'm not moving away like I thought. Essentially, I have evicted myself  I found a nice apartment that I'd like but the occupancy date is August 1st, the same day my property's occupancy date is so I absolutely have to be gone before the 1st, but can't get into this place until the 1st or later. I emailed the property manager and asked if it was possible to sublease the last month from previous tenant' lease (not out of the question in a college town when most people are gone in the summer). Otherwise I'm gonna have to figure out what to do with all my stuff just for one night. I thought about renting a truck for 24 hours and leaving it packed overnight, but I really don't want to shell out money for a truck to move literally less than a mile from my current place. I'm hoping some of my neighbors are willing to help a buddy out and I can stash my stuff among several friends' apartments.
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Feb 15, 2012 22:02
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Are there any websites that give information on the various neighborhoods in/around a city? I've been looking at apartment listings and it's a bit intimidating because they tend to not list information about the surrounding area beyond the part of the city it's in and maybe "x miles to public transportation" which doesn't really mean anything to me.
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Feb 16, 2012 21:57
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Well, for 'Am I going to get stabbed' the answer is Spotcrime. Disclaimer: if you live in a city, you are probably going to have crime around you. Deal with it. You can also look at the details of events, sometimes something is categorized as a 'Shooting' and the report is 'Well someone called 911 and said they hear gunshots, but we never found anything so whatever'. Another good tool is WalkScore. The intent of this is to show you how 'walkable' your area is, but it basically aggregates all sorts of stuff and throws them up on a map, so it can give you a decent sense of the areas character. For example, are the five closest coffee shops Dunkin Donuts? Or are they amusingly named indy shops? If you want more details about a specific city than that, you can probably find a thread for them and just ask people. Or, you can visit your local library, because there are tons of books like 'Moving to Seattle' and 'Understanding Tacoma' that will give you little blurbs about areas. Obviously check the date on these because what was true in 1998 is not going to be the case any more.
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Feb 16, 2012 22:12
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Ashcans posted:Well, for 'Am I going to get stabbed' the answer is Spotcrime. Disclaimer: if you live in a city, you are probably going to have crime around you. Deal with it. You can also look at the details of events, sometimes something is categorized as a 'Shooting' and the report is 'Well someone called 911 and said they hear gunshots, but we never found anything so whatever'. walkscore.com is pretty darned good, especially if you're interested in being able to walk place instead of having to drive there (duh). I haven't had very good luck with "Relocating to X"-type books, though. You're not going to get brutal honesty, and you're not going to get opinions that will be terribly helpful for you. (At least, I haven't.) The best info I've found is on forums like this one (I've seen moving/relocating forums; those could also be useful), where people can informally talk about their subjective opinions of various areas.
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Feb 16, 2012 22:59
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My husband and I are getting ready to move into our first apartment this weekend. It's technically the top half of a house from the 1900s, with lots of space. We have no furniture, and will need at least a bed frame and couch. There's already a dining table that comes with the place. Does anyone have some good suggestions for what to look for in furniture and where/what to get? I'm thinking about a futon instead of a normal couch, for when guests want to crash. Also, does anyone have tips for living in an old house? It has baseboard heating and no air conditioning, which will be fun during the summer. We live in the Midwest, so window a/c units will probably be required.
Schmeichy fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Feb 17, 2012 |
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Feb 16, 2012 23:15
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Schmeichy posted:My husband and I are getting ready to move into our first apartment this weekend. It's technically the top half of a house from the 1900s, with lots of space. We have no furniture, and will need at least a bed frame and couch. There's already a dining table that comes with the place. Does anyone have some good suggestions for what to look for in furniture and where/what to get? I'm thinking about a futon instead of a normal couch, for when guests want to crash. Also, does anyone have tips for living in an old house? It has baseboard heading and no air conditioning, which will be fun during the summer. We live in the Midwest, so window a/c units will probably be required. When I lived in the midwest there was a furniture company called CORT that had sales on their frames and mattresses almost constantly.
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Feb 16, 2012 23:30
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Right now my boyfriend and I are trying to find a place, but he has no credit and my credit is absolute poo poo. Will it be possible to get a decent place despite this? He doesn't know anyone that can cosign for him, his parents have lovely credit scores as well. Right now our big thing is we don't want to keep applying for places and getting turned down because of our credit, with the constant checks knocking it down even further. I know the easy answer here is "just improve your credit score" but that won't be possible until after I move out of my current situation. 
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Feb 17, 2012 04:01
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Dabbo posted:Right now my boyfriend and I are trying to find a place, but he has no credit and my credit is absolute poo poo. Will it be possible to get a decent place despite this? He doesn't know anyone that can cosign for him, his parents have lovely credit scores as well. Right now our big thing is we don't want to keep applying for places and getting turned down because of our credit, with the constant checks knocking it down even further. Does your boyfriend have a job? Sometimes proof of income and bank statements can be used instead of a credit check if you don't have credit established. This depends on where you live, in college areas a lot of places don't credit check because college kids don't have credit. In big cities it's probably different. Can your parents cosign?
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Feb 17, 2012 05:01
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:Does your boyfriend have a job? Sometimes proof of income and bank statements can be used instead of a credit check if you don't have credit established. This depends on where you live, in college areas a lot of places don't credit check because college kids don't have credit. In big cities it's probably different. He just got a job a couple of weeks ago, and pretty much has had to spend both of his paychecks as soon as he got them in. We're looking for a place in Portland, OR. And I'm not sure I'd want my parents to cosign, is that something they could lord over our heads? My mom is the type who would constantly threaten to get us kicked out of our place or something like that, would she have that ability as a cosigner? I don't know how these things work 
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Feb 17, 2012 06:44
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:Can your parents cosign? Having seen some of Dabbo's posts about her family, no, they emphatically can't. She's trying to get away from them and they are horrible. Sorry I don't have anything useful to offer you, Dabbo Maybe you could ask around Portland services for low-income people and see if they know of places willing to take people with bad credit? Hopefully they would not be too dive-y. In the meantime, if you can, it would be a good idea to start building credit (Ask here, but the basic answer is "secured credit card").
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Feb 17, 2012 14:44
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prefect posted:I haven't had very good luck with "Relocating to X"-type books, though. You're not going to get brutal honesty, and you're not going to get opinions that will be terribly helpful for you. a Dabbo posted:Right now my boyfriend and I are trying to find a place, but he has no credit and my credit is absolute poo poo. Will it be possible to get a decent place despite this? Your best option is probably to avoid managed properties and apartment buildings that are run by compannies. You might be able to convince an owner that you are upstanding people despite your lack of/bad credit. Your best shot might be trying to find some sort of sublet/roomshare with some other people where your problems may not even come up. If you can get into a place and sublet for a while, it will give you a landlord reference, which can go a long way. Also time to work on your credit.
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Feb 17, 2012 16:02
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Ashcans posted:Your best option is probably to avoid managed properties and apartment buildings that are run by compannies. You might be able to convince an owner that you are upstanding people despite your lack of/bad credit. Your best shot might be trying to find some sort of sublet/roomshare with some other people where your problems may not even come up. If you can get into a place and sublet for a while, it will give you a landlord reference, which can go a long way. Also time to work on your credit. I'd think the best thing would be to be honest about it with a prospective landlord - Ask whether a non-existent/bad credit rating would preclude you from being accepted for a given place, provided that you could produce proof of income. That way you'd at least know whether or not it would be worth taking a hit via the credit check. future ghost fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Feb 17, 2012 |
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Feb 17, 2012 19:14
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I emailed an apartment complex asking how much rent was and if they were pet-friendly (neither was listed on their website). They respond saying they can only answer my questions via a phone call, which I find very odd especially since these are very simple questions. I'm assuming this is so I can't get anything in writing and they'll do a bait-and-switch on me. Is there any other reason why they would refuse to give me anything in writing?
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Feb 17, 2012 22:16
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