One thing that living in an “affordable” apartment complex is that you live among people who are near the poverty line. No desperate poor, but people who are close. There are many signs, but one sure sign is the ubiquitous “Swisher Sweets” wrappers. Not being a smoker, I wasn’t very aware of the small flavored cigarillos that are sold at convenience stores. Small...
More on the trials and tribulations of living in an apartment, this time, the house across the street has stepped up their game beyond the 4 nights a week of parties. Now they are doing auto repair. Yep, auto repair. Changing oil, replacing starters, installing LOUD stereo systems, and fart cans on cheap Japanese econoboxes. It is a joy, especially since they start at about 6 PM. Nothing like...
Life in a moderate density apartment complex is fun, and I mean that in the most positive way. The property management team does try to be fair, particularly around “parking“. Each unit has one assigned space. There is a “permit” (a mirror hangar) that looks impossible to counterfeit. And even if you could, the spaces are assigned, so each permit is numbered. We have one...
Having the shock of going from ~2,400 sqft to < 1,200 sqft is enough. While we never filled out last house, we had collected a lot of “stuff“. But there are things we have lost that hurt. Today, I will talk about kitchen space Both our houses in Arizona had ample counter space. In Tucson, they were fine Corien counter tops, with ample space for gadgets. But I didn’t need to...
Continuing on in the vein of apartment living adjustments, this episode will be about the laundry situation. As the units do not have hookups for washers and dryers, we have four laundry rooms spread across the campus. Open from 9:00AM until 10:00PM, they are convenient oases for those needing to do laundry. Of course, there are wrinkles. First – machine hogs The doors unlock at precisely...
The continuing saga of apartment living; today we will talk about the common trash area. The complex has three parking lots, and in each parking lot has a common trash collection area. Three large trash bins, and one recycling bin. One would think that would be sufficient capacity. And they would be, if all was normal. Fortunately, the pickup happens 3 times a week, so roughly every other day the...
Settling into apartment life is interesting to say the least. There are benefits and detriments of course in the life. This episode I will be just have some random observations. The people We are lucky that all our neighbors are pretty friendly. We wave and say “Hi” and they all say “Hi” back. This is easy for us, as we generally try to befriend our neighbors wherever we...
My wife and I have embarked on a new journey. As we wait for our house to sell in Arizona, with the fear of destroying our down payment for a house in temporary housing, we have punted and signed a lease on an apartment. Fortunately, we found a place that was happy to have us with our greyhounds. Yay.
This series of posts will chronicle our time here, and the fun that it will surely entail.