housing, chapter 3: the apartment

Anyways, to finally finish this saga... Once we had put our offer in on the condo, we needed to find a place to live in the interim, from August to.... well, to whenever they let us move in (January? March? June? who knows?). I went on the hunt for shelter again, which included as many uninspiring places as the other search had. But, the difference between renting and owning reared its head again: renting an uninspiring place = a temporary issue, whereas buying an uninspiring place = an assault on your sense of self. This was definitely an easier search.

Halifax has a huge rental market, because of all of the universities, I assume. Places range from attic suites, to huge old houses converted into many 1-3 bedroom suites, to typical apartment buildings ranging from 3 to 20 storeys. I finally settled on a very average apartment. "Very average" here is a very positive term; it's relatively cheap, has all the space we need, and is in a good location.

The downside is that nearly every rental unit in Halifax comes with a 12 month lease. (I think this is so the landlords guarantee themselves some income in the summer, when most / all of the students disappear.) So we've committed ourselves until the end of next July, which is hopefully much longer than we'll need it. The saving grace is that because of the ubiquitous 1 year leases, sublets are very common, and you can break your lease if you find a new tenant to start their own new lease. That's actually how we got the place: the previous tenant was moving to Edmonton, so she posted the apartment on Kijiji. So it should be okay in the end.

Anyways, here are some (slightly blurry) pictures. No pictures of the bedroom because: a) it's kind of dark and hard to photograph, and b) it's just full of clothes and moving boxes waiting for their time to shine again. (The big poppies on the wall are basically post-it stickers.)