62
Knowing that I would have a steady source of income on the way, I
decided to apartment hunt in the Spring of Nineteen Eighty-Nine. As
I had grown comfortable taking the bus and my own car was starting to
need more maintenance than I could afford on my estimated monthly
amount of just under five hundred dollars, I decided to find myself
an apartment that would fully take advantage of the bus routes. So
the hunt was on for not only an apartment I could afford, but one
near at least two different bus routes. Given my comfort using a
computer, I decided to be very systematic about it and create a
spreadsheet. Opening the phone book I popped in all of the names,
phone numbers and addresses of the apartment complexes in the yellow
pages. I then called each one to ask if they had apartments
available and the going rate for a single bedroom or efficiency, and
other details. I didn't actually know the difference between a
single bedroom or an efficiency at first, but quickly caught on.
Info in hand, I cut out all apartments that didn't include utilities
as part of the rent. My monthly income would be fixed for at least
the next few years and so I needed a monthly apartment whose costs
would be fixed as well. As I had gotten used to living on next to
nothing each month, I concluded that seventy-five to one hundred
dollars should cover my other monthly needs and thus the apartment
had to be below four hundred and twenty-five dollars. As I had been
income free for the last few months, I was getting a far higher share
of food stamps than when I received the state aid and, surprisingly,
Social Security Disability Income didn't seem to count against food
stamps so I would actually be receiving more food money each month
than when I had less income.
Once the apartments had been narrowed down by cost, I then pulled out
my city map and hunted up the various addresses and marked them,
comparing them to the number of bus routes within a few blocks of
each. This produced a nice, sortable numeric score and everything
with a zero was now cut. Having watched elderly people struggle to
get their groceries home using the bus, I next concluded I needed an
apartment within six blocks of a grocery store. As I wouldn't be
going to the store as often as taking the bus, I figured I could
handle the extra walking when shopping. This cut out nearly half of
the apartments that were left and of the fifteen remaining, I picked
my top five to visit in person and took a look.
One was an efficiency and I quickly discarded it as it was along only
one bus route that ran infrequently. The second one I visited was
great! The price was right, it was next to three bus routes, it came
with extra apartment amenities like a game room, meeting room, and
swimming pool. While I didn't see myself swimming, I thought could
probably put the meeting room to good use with occasional science
fiction club organizational meetings and perhaps even a few writer's
group meetings if needed. I applied for the apartment and was
summarily refused. They only wanted people of a certain income
level and even though I could afford the apartment better than
most others on my list, my income level was deemed too low for me to
be accepted. I felt this was unfair, but they assured me there were
no laws about discriminating against people due to income level.
The next day I was off to another apartment. It actually had four
bus routes passing by within a few blocks on all four sides. While
it didn't have the meeting or gaming rooms, the apartment itself was
very similar to the one at the place which turned me down. They
didn't have any minimum income level that would disqualify me and I
applied for the apartment. But there was a hitch: Their
application included a credit checking fee of thirty dollars. I was
leery of paying unrefundable money to apply for an apartment, but
given the great location, bus wise, and the office staff
assurances that they rarely rejected people unless they had terrible
credit, I went ahead and wrote them the check.
When I returned the next day to confirm my apartment number and move
in date, they told me they hadn't gotten around to calling me. I
had been rejected,
not because I had a terrible credit history, but simply because I had
so little. The management had decided that given my skimpy credit
history, for all they knew I would be a terrible risk. I was fuming
as I felt I had been mislead and they'd got to pocket my money at the
same time. Walking out of the apartment complex I knew I'd have to
kill some time before the next bus would come to take me back to my
mother's place. It was such a shame I couldn't get this apartment as
it was the only part of town where four bus lines passed so closely
together other than the downtown area.
Meandering toward the main road, I realized I was walking next to an
apartment complex that I had not seen in the phone book. I decided I
might as well check into it as I killed time and hunted through the
buildings until I finally found an apartment marked 'Manager'. It
was an older lady with a bit of a foreign accent and I asked about
their apartments. She showed me the common two types of one bedrooms
that they had and while not as good as the first two places I had
applied for, they were good enough. They weren't as cheap as
the other two places though, coming in at four hundred and
twenty-five dollars a month. Still, the location was great with a
grocery store just four blocks away and all the coinciding bus lines.
There wasn't a minimum income level required, as long as you
could pay the rent that was all that mattered, and when I asked
if they did credit checks she said a handshake was good enough for
her. I told her I'd think about it and caught the bus back to my
mother's and my little room.
Being back in my eight by eight bedroom quickly helped me make up my
mind to accept the apartment. I returned the next day to let her
know and fill in the paperwork, but when she saw me at the door, she
was excited. There was another apartment that had been reserved
for someone, but they had fallen through. It was a garden-level
apartment directly below the manager's so I concluded that I wouldn't
have to worry about noisy neighbors and, when she let me in to see,
it was definitely a step up from the other apartments she had shown
me the day before... And it was only twenty-five dollars more a
month than the others.
At four hundred and fifty dollars, this blew my budgeted amount and I
would have to pass. Yet, it was a much better looking
apartment and I liked the layout and it had a great storage closet...
Of my monthly cash in hand, I reserved fifteen dollars of it
for the monthly after club meeting dinner so with this apartment it
would leave me with just over thirty dollars of 'everything else'
money each month. If I sold the car I wouldn't have to worry
about insurance, gas, or maintenance money... I took the
apartment. I figured that I wouldn't be moving in until June and six
months later I'd get my first cost of living adjustment, so as long
as the apartment rent didn't grow faster than my cost of living
increase, I would gradually end-up with more money in hand with each
passing year. As I'd have leftover back payment cash in the bank, I
could use some of it to cover my monthly expenses until the end of
this year.
Signed-up and confirmed, I decided to celebrate my coming freedom and
went to that year's Starfest Science Fiction convention for
the first time in years. I used the last of my unemployment savings
from the previous year, but as I was going to have that Social
Security back payment arriving in just a few weeks, what could
possibly go wrong...?
When I got back to my mother's mobile home after the convention, I
found my bedroom unlocked and it had been rummaged through. As the
keyed door knob was intact, I concluded that mother must have found
my spare key while I was gone for the weekend and let herself in.
While disordered, there wasn't much missing. But of the things
missing was my high school student file with my class records and
original I.Q. testing scores. Oddly enough, what was untouched
was the paperwork on my computer desk which included my disability
reward letter, so it appeared that my mother probably still didn't
know of my new found income and my soon to come move.
However she got in my room, I couldn't allow her to keep rummaging
around and taking or throwing away more of my belongings when I
wasn't there. I promptly went to the hardware store and bought a
replacement keyed doorknob for the bedroom using my overdraft
protection to cover the amount.
I could pay it back when I got that Social Security back payment
check...
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