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I hate apartment shopping! We went today to look at another apartment, yes, we know it's Sunday! They didn't have a model to show us, so we have to go back on Tuesday or Wednesday and then they may have a model... But they don't think that they are going to have anything available anyway. So I got ticked off and came home and have been searching for the last hour or two for something online. The apartment complex across the street from our old complex actually has a 3 bedroom apartment available June 1st. The price range is somewhere between $1100 & $1399 and they couldn't be more specific since I was calling the off-site leasing company. They also have a 2 bedroom available July 1, somwhere between $900 & $1299. They should know in the next few days if they are going to have any more July or August openings. I don't like the 2 bedroom floorplan, but what can you do? The 3 bedroom is awesome! There is a HUGE pantry and a walk-in laundry room. The problem is that the bedroom I would put Hannah in backs up to someone else's apartment. The other bedroom has a door that goes outside and I do not want to put Hannah in there. My problem with both of these complexes today is that for "just" $100 more I can have a much nicer apartment. But then I think that if I were to put "just $100" per month in savings.... that's $1200 a year. Definitely worth it to me... The other problem with the 3 bedroom apt is that it is on the 2nd floor... No stairs, thanks! :) Hannah is not ready to walk up a flight of concrete stairs on her own and can you really see me carrying Hannah and 10 bags of groceries??? It would be Homecoming all over again... I think I am just going to have to suck it up and live in a not-as-nice but still really nice apartment. and I may have to get over the 2nd floor thing, too. the good news is that thomas agrees that we need to just throw away our kitchen table and chairs. we are going to make do with barstools (which I need to go buy tomorrow!) until we can find the table we want. our table is so ugly. thomas and i bought it at k-mart for $65 about 3 months before we were even married. remember back when that ivory scrolled metal was "in"? well, we bought the k-mart version and besides being ugly, it is incredibly uncomfortable! i want a square table. i found one i like at garden ridge. the table and 4 chairs are $250, but i don't like the chairs... so the search continues. I am excited to go look at more apartments on Tuesday morning. I wish there were places open tomorrow. I guess they need their holidays, too. :) I really am trying to be positive about all this, but it is really hard. I don't want to spend more than $800/month on an apartment. There are apartments around here for that price. But I just can't live there. It isn't the apartments themselves that I can't handle. It's the bugs (cheap apartments here always have bugs... BIG bugs!) and the shall we call them, clientele, who live there. Jacksonville has had more murders this year than Orlando, Tampa & Miami combined. And I hate to say it, but the cheaper the apartment, the riskier it becomes. I was really excited about one complex across the street from my parents' neighborhood. The price was really good and the apartment was cute. The kitchen was TINY and so were the bathrooms, but the living room was cute and there were really cute porches. Then I drove around the complex at night... no thanks! I would never leave my house at night. There was another cute complex that had really cute apartments. The kitchen was tiny (seriously 6 small cupboards & NO pantry) and the bathrooms were kind-of iffy. I was ready to move in, though until I took a closer look around. The ready-to-move-in apartment had dead bugs ground into the carpet and there were dead centipedes lining the walls. There was gunk stuck on the cupboard doors. Dont' get me started on the refrigerator. So I asked the manager if they would clean it before move-in and she said that it had already been cleaned and if the future resident didn't feel it was clean enough they could clean it. They don't do regular pest control. Residents have to request it. So I could request that my apartment be sprayed every week, but if my neighbors don't have their apartment treated at least once a month, it won't do any good. Well, given my absolute terror at seeing roaches in my apartment, that wouldn't be a good situation. This whole search has been an absolute nightmare and I wish that we could just decide on a place, any clean apartment at all, and just get it over and done with! I'm just going to have to decide on Tuesday! :)