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The not-haunted house we're renting
So, I went to SF from the 16th to the 18th. Ostensibly, this trip was going to be 3 hard days of hunting for an apartment. Well, or at least when I booked the tickets.
However, in the meantime, thanks to Jenny and Philip losing the place they thought they had, and agreeing to go in with me on a 3BR place, this actually worked out much easier than expected. Kind of, at least.
Our requirements were that Jenny needed a place that took dogs, Phil wanted a place with a parking space, preferably a garage, and I wanted to be in the midst of good walking places and near a BART station and preferably Muni.
We'd been looking at CL postings for a week or so, and had even scheduled to look at a place at 2nd and Brannan on Wednesday evening. And then on Sunday, I saw this listing. It had ALL of our requirements -- and was even like, right where Jenny had hoped to live originally, in the heart of the mission district, near Dolores Park, near lots of restaurants and stuff. I emailed the guy and got no response.
Monday afternoon I called. He told me that he got my email but wasn't sure whether it'd work for us since we were 3 roomates, the problem being that one of the bedrooms is a loft over the living room, so has no noise insulation. I told him that I'd talk it over with the others. He said he was showing it to two groups at 6:30pm.
So I told Jenny and Phil that. And they went to the showing at 6:30. With the two other groups.
Well, apparently all 3 groups loved it and put down a deposit of $500 that evening. (The idea here is, you all put down a deposit, you all apply, and then one of you will get it and the others will get a refund.) Jenny even called me at dinner like "WE'RE AT THE HOUSE AND IT IS SUPER-COOL AND IN A GREAT LOCATION AND OMG WE HAVE THIS COOL ROOF PATIO!" She had the idea to offer slightly more money for the place -- the asking price was $4950/month, so she offered $5200. (Yes, San Francisco rent prices are INSANE.)
So, Tuesday we scrambled to get in our application. (For me, this was only annoying because I've been in Japan so long, and so I had to go look up my former landlord and some other various things.) In the end, it turned out that the most important thing is verifying that we have monthly income that will cover our rent. So between that plus offering the higher rent... we got an email in the late afternoon saying that we got the place! And that they wanted us to come in with a cashier's check and sign a lease by EOD Thursday. So we made plans to do so on Wednesday night.
I got to SF on Wednesday afternoon and basically spent the afternoon hanging out at Tagged, catching up with people (who were surprisingly happy to see me), playing a new game on our site, stuff like that.
I left at 5pm to go up to where the rental office was; took the bus there, got there the same time as Jenny, and we're both like "...is this right?" It looked like just any other house on the block, but, sure enough, the upstairs was the rental office. We beat Phil there by a little while, so the rental guy started making random conversation with us, starting off with,
"I have good news for you guys, namely that I don't have to inform you that someone died in the unit recently, because, fortunately, nobody did."
We're a little confused, of course.
So, it turns out that there's a California state law that says that if someone died in the last 3 years inside the unit someone is renting, then the rental office has to inform the tenants. I guess it's either for people afraid of ghosts, or for people afraid of getting their place broken into and murdered brutally? I dunno.
The house we're renting is this 4-story townhome type place, and apparently the reason such a nice place in such an ideal location is available is because of some unfortunate circumstances. It was being rented by a couple in their 50's, who had recently become separated from each other. She was living in the house, and he was living elsewhere. Until recently, when she became depressed. And apparently committed suicide. HOWEVER, it seems that she actually committed suicide in Carmel. Why, we don't know. But the rental guy got confirmation from the grieving husband, and also found the obituary saying that she died in Carmel.
Still, weird.
Anyway, the house is still mostly full of her stuff, though nobody is living there currently, which is why we were able to go over there to look at it afterwards.
And yeah, it IS cool! There's a private roof patio with a neat view, a big livingroom/diningroom area and a gigantic master bedroom that's actually a loft over the living room (which Jenny will have). The 1st floor is a 2-car garage, and the 2nd floor is two smaller bedrooms; apparently I'll get the really small one but it's not significantly smaller than my room in Mike's house, honestly.
So, yay. A lease and a house and all that. And the location IS fantastic. Jenny and I walked around afterwards and got dinner at a Belgian diner type place around the corner. Then I walked 2 more blocks to BART and came back to Millbrae.
A few days later, though, we got email from the landlord guy saying that the husband of the deceased woman needed more time to get stuff out of the house, was going to have an estate sale, stuff like that, and could we put off moving in until the 7th?
I had to start work on the 5th, so that would be a little iffy. However, Mike's company party is on the 9th. So, I am still homeless this week and crashing with Jason and Drew, and started work today. I'll fly back to Seattle on Thurs night, and spend Friday daytime loading a UHaul, Friday evening going to the MS party, and then the weekend we're going to drive down to SF.
I'm hoping nothing stupid happens with this though. We have a lease, dammit!
However, in the meantime, thanks to Jenny and Philip losing the place they thought they had, and agreeing to go in with me on a 3BR place, this actually worked out much easier than expected. Kind of, at least.
Our requirements were that Jenny needed a place that took dogs, Phil wanted a place with a parking space, preferably a garage, and I wanted to be in the midst of good walking places and near a BART station and preferably Muni.
We'd been looking at CL postings for a week or so, and had even scheduled to look at a place at 2nd and Brannan on Wednesday evening. And then on Sunday, I saw this listing. It had ALL of our requirements -- and was even like, right where Jenny had hoped to live originally, in the heart of the mission district, near Dolores Park, near lots of restaurants and stuff. I emailed the guy and got no response.
Monday afternoon I called. He told me that he got my email but wasn't sure whether it'd work for us since we were 3 roomates, the problem being that one of the bedrooms is a loft over the living room, so has no noise insulation. I told him that I'd talk it over with the others. He said he was showing it to two groups at 6:30pm.
So I told Jenny and Phil that. And they went to the showing at 6:30. With the two other groups.
Well, apparently all 3 groups loved it and put down a deposit of $500 that evening. (The idea here is, you all put down a deposit, you all apply, and then one of you will get it and the others will get a refund.) Jenny even called me at dinner like "WE'RE AT THE HOUSE AND IT IS SUPER-COOL AND IN A GREAT LOCATION AND OMG WE HAVE THIS COOL ROOF PATIO!" She had the idea to offer slightly more money for the place -- the asking price was $4950/month, so she offered $5200. (Yes, San Francisco rent prices are INSANE.)
So, Tuesday we scrambled to get in our application. (For me, this was only annoying because I've been in Japan so long, and so I had to go look up my former landlord and some other various things.) In the end, it turned out that the most important thing is verifying that we have monthly income that will cover our rent. So between that plus offering the higher rent... we got an email in the late afternoon saying that we got the place! And that they wanted us to come in with a cashier's check and sign a lease by EOD Thursday. So we made plans to do so on Wednesday night.
I got to SF on Wednesday afternoon and basically spent the afternoon hanging out at Tagged, catching up with people (who were surprisingly happy to see me), playing a new game on our site, stuff like that.
I left at 5pm to go up to where the rental office was; took the bus there, got there the same time as Jenny, and we're both like "...is this right?" It looked like just any other house on the block, but, sure enough, the upstairs was the rental office. We beat Phil there by a little while, so the rental guy started making random conversation with us, starting off with,
"I have good news for you guys, namely that I don't have to inform you that someone died in the unit recently, because, fortunately, nobody did."
We're a little confused, of course.
So, it turns out that there's a California state law that says that if someone died in the last 3 years inside the unit someone is renting, then the rental office has to inform the tenants. I guess it's either for people afraid of ghosts, or for people afraid of getting their place broken into and murdered brutally? I dunno.
The house we're renting is this 4-story townhome type place, and apparently the reason such a nice place in such an ideal location is available is because of some unfortunate circumstances. It was being rented by a couple in their 50's, who had recently become separated from each other. She was living in the house, and he was living elsewhere. Until recently, when she became depressed. And apparently committed suicide. HOWEVER, it seems that she actually committed suicide in Carmel. Why, we don't know. But the rental guy got confirmation from the grieving husband, and also found the obituary saying that she died in Carmel.
Still, weird.
Anyway, the house is still mostly full of her stuff, though nobody is living there currently, which is why we were able to go over there to look at it afterwards.
And yeah, it IS cool! There's a private roof patio with a neat view, a big livingroom/diningroom area and a gigantic master bedroom that's actually a loft over the living room (which Jenny will have). The 1st floor is a 2-car garage, and the 2nd floor is two smaller bedrooms; apparently I'll get the really small one but it's not significantly smaller than my room in Mike's house, honestly.
So, yay. A lease and a house and all that. And the location IS fantastic. Jenny and I walked around afterwards and got dinner at a Belgian diner type place around the corner. Then I walked 2 more blocks to BART and came back to Millbrae.
A few days later, though, we got email from the landlord guy saying that the husband of the deceased woman needed more time to get stuff out of the house, was going to have an estate sale, stuff like that, and could we put off moving in until the 7th?
I had to start work on the 5th, so that would be a little iffy. However, Mike's company party is on the 9th. So, I am still homeless this week and crashing with Jason and Drew, and started work today. I'll fly back to Seattle on Thurs night, and spend Friday daytime loading a UHaul, Friday evening going to the MS party, and then the weekend we're going to drive down to SF.
I'm hoping nothing stupid happens with this though. We have a lease, dammit!