Massachusetts Welcomes You, Sort of

I feel the need to get all of these first initial experiences here in Massachusetts written down as I am afraid I will forget them all too soon.

Before moving here, in our hurry to pack up our house, get our house ready for renting, and deciding what to take and what to sell or get rid of, we also managed to start looking for an apartment.  I began to notice a trend anytime I looked. Most apartments here have hardwood floors, a lot of the houses here have 3 floors with one apartment on each floor, and many of the ads I saw on craigslist were littered with a word I have come to know the meaning of: deleaded.

We have had quite the adventure looking for apartments here, due to the problem I mentioned in my prior post aka scary neighborhood. Gratefully, we didn't know about this problem until we got here.
Also gratefully, I called on an apartment on one of our first days here that was listed on craigslist. Mona* called me back.
Mona was sent by Heavenly Father, no doubt about that. Here was a lady with access to LOADS of apartments and was forthright and honest about what we could expect in the neighborhoods and in the apartments we were looking at. She is the only reason we finally got the apartment we're currently living in.
 Mona showed us initially 2 apartments and only told us about the 3rd, which is the one we now live in. The first apartment had black grout between sickly orange tiles in the bathroom, and the smell of cigarettes the whole flight of steps up.
The second apartment smelled of Indian food and stale urine on the way up the stairs.  I instantly decided there was no way I could live with that combination everyday. Mona, clearly used to this kind of thing, only mentioned that it smelled like someone was making dinner as we ascended the stairs. The second apartment was being completely updated and so it was torn apart with only a few cupboards up in the kitchen.
Neither apartment would be ready for at least a few weeks. And was well over the budget we set for ourselves.

And evidently these were our 2 best options.

Luckily, Reed and I had not been scared off by Mona's description of our present apartment, which did/does indeed have drug dealing going on out front, but also is only a few minutes walk to Reed's University and is centrally located to a lot of things.
We had to wait a few days to even see our apartment due to the property manager having the flu but maybe it was necessary for us to even consider it a possibility. After 6 days in a motel, we were desperate to have a place to live that included more than 1 room! We showed up on Monday, only to be informed of the property managers illness but we decided to walk around the property a little bit to get a feel for the area. With our 2 little girls in tow. Nobody bothered us, and of course we weren't going to be bothering them.
The next day we finally saw the property. In spite of the scary neighborhood, the apartment was clean. New. No funny smells. So we looked past the neighborhood and got ourselves an apartment!
I think the thing that sums up the whole apartment finding experience here is a telephone call that I had with someone who was looking to rent me an apartment.
She returned my call, asking if I was the one looking to rent her apartment. I responded in the positive and listed off the things I was looking for. She responded by asking again if I was wanting to rent an apartment on HER street. I answered yes. She then said to me "You sound like a wholesome person" and then proceeded to tell me that her street wasn't exactly safe for people like me and told me all the reasons I may or may not want to live on that street in her apartment. That is exactly what I feel like we've found again and again.
Here in the middle of urban living, people live differently.
And that's all I can say about that.




 *Her name has been changed to protect her from weirdos.  Unless you move here and need an apartment too, then you can call me and I will get you in touch with this amazing realtor.*