The library is just down the street.

 

Our apartment search continued as Andre and I made daily trips from Los Angeles to Long Beach.  Stress mounted as we saw terrible apartment after terrible apartment, trudging in and out of numerous realty offices, chasing down leads on Craigslist, making multiple U-turns when one of us spotted a ‘For Rent’ sign near a driveway.  We became sullen and irritable.  Returning to Los Feliz, we established a ritual whereby we would pour a drink, scour the internet, watch the Olympics, and go to bed.  Repeat the next day.  And the next.

But we swore to ourselves that we wouldn’t lower our standards.  In fact, we raised them:  we realized that we could get a two bedroom for what we were able to pay.  And we were discovering exactly where we wanted to live as well.  The desirable neighborhoods of Belmont Shores and Belmont Heights had little to offer in terms of rentals, but we stumbled upon an area that reminded us a little bit of Brooklyn.  Granted, it was only a couple of blocks, but East 4th Street housed the art theatre, a book store, two wine bars, a coffee shop, restaurants, and more than one vintage store from which that musty, familiar thrift-store smell wafted onto the street.

Nearby, we found a 2 BR for $1125 in a decidedly dicey building.  But the unit had been remodeled and had an eat-in-kitchen, along with plenty of closet space.  The floors were tile, but they weren’t hideous.  On the other hand, the rear windows revealed an intimate view of the neighbor’s rotting fence, and we would be the only tenants speaking English.  But we’d hunting for a week, and we were tempted.

We’d also seen a 1 BR for $995 (including utilities) in a building named, of all things, Gotham Lofts.  It was full of charm and character, but it was downtown, and a good four blocks from the decent section of downtown.  We asked the building manager, a cute 23 year old who lived there, if she felt safe coming home at night.  “It’s fine,” she replied cheerfully.  “I mean, always carry Mace, but…”

The apartment, while spacious, was not without quirks that would do an NYC apartment  proud.  The kitchen was so narrow that one couldn’t open the refrigerator door without bumping into the opposing cabinets.  There was an enormous hole in the bathroom wall from which I could imagine all sorts of creepy-crawlies emerging.  Other than that, it was fine.

So as the week rounded out, our options were a ghetto 2 BR with views of a fence, or a 1BR requiring an investment in Mace.  Neither one felt right.  Our standards were slipping after all.

Then on Saturday morning we showed up at an open house for a 2 BR for $1300.  Nobody was at the open house, of course, except for two disgruntled twenty-something girls who’d been looking for a place since May.  Undeterred by signature California flakiness, I called the building manager, who was not home, but would be in an hour.  The girls left, disgusted, but we stuck around.

When Luke, the manager, showed up, he looked like he’d been plucked from the streets of Williamsburg.  He was sporting black skinny jeans, nerd glasses, and boots.  He let us into a courtyard that had a faintly European feel with a pretty, but defunct fountain at its center.  We ascended a staircase to apartment three.  Simply put, it was fabulous.  Painted a pale shade of turquoise, it featured built-in cabinetry, lots of closets, and an itty-bitty outside area just large enough for a charcoal grill.  We applied online the second we got home and spent Monday anxiously waiting to hear back.

Somehow, another couple had put in an application before us, probably while we were trekking it back to L.A.  However, in this case California idiocy paid off:  the applicants had failed to produce pay stubs, and after three unreturned phone calls informing them of this, the management company scrapped their application and went on to ours.

We moved in Friday.