Dirty Laundry
Now that Captain Awesome and I are back in the states and have moved to our new fortress of solitude, we have had many friends asking us how we ended up in our new place. I'm not sure if this is meant with scorn or pity, but I've heard it enough to use this medium to answer the querying masses.
Initially we were looking about 15mi south of here in a known commuter-suburban area. Thrilling, no. Filled with rentals, yes. We even had a favorite spot picked out based on websites we reviewed. This location offered primarily 2 bedroom 1.5ba townhouses for rent, which seemed like a well-timed balm to ease the pain we felt about not buying the house in Seattle we thought we would be moving into.
There were three "levels" of townhouses available, the highest of which was out of our rental budget. No problem, we were happy with levels 2 & 3. However, only level 1 had laundry in-unit. Innocently I asked to be shown where the laundry facilities for the rest of the residents of the 300 townhouses were. "Oh, we have two laundry rooms on site," our sales lady gushed, while I blanched. Two??? I asked to see one. Inside was not unlike a nice version of Bing Wong- 10 washers, 10 dryers, and a few chairs and tables.
CA and I were appalled. We were going to pay $XXXX to come home to our nice townhouse, then have to basically go to the laundromat? We moved on.
The second major contender was about 7 miles north near a very ritzy shopping mall. (In between the first and second were a number of "drive by's": CA would drive up to a place and I would nix it before we could even park. In my defense, it did make the day shorter.) Automatically rents skyrocketed to the point where a 1br 1ba "with den" was seriously pushing the limits of our rent budget. However, the location was very convenient to CA's job, and to life in general, and we hadn't seen anything better. I think CA was also very moved by the fact that there was a "community breakfast" every Saturday morning in the clubhouse.
I was now, however, on a mission. Mission Convenient Laundry. I did not require in-unit laundry, but I required a non-laundromat setup. I asked our sales rep the critical question: Where is the laundry for this unit? Her response was to take us from the third floor to the first and open the door to a tiny closet containing two washers and dryers. Which, as I quickly ascertained, were to service 43 apartments in that building. What???
In disbelief we asked, "what do people do about their laundry?" "Oh, most of them use a fluff-and-fold service," was the answer. So let me get this straight. I'm going to pay through the ass for an apartment that doesn't even have two bedrooms, and then on top of that I'm going to have to pay to get my laundry done? No thank you.
Suffice it to say, by the time we came to the place we now call home, and saw in the brochure that every unit has laundry in-unit, we were 9/10 to being sold. Thus it was that our dirty laundry dictated our living space.
Initially we were looking about 15mi south of here in a known commuter-suburban area. Thrilling, no. Filled with rentals, yes. We even had a favorite spot picked out based on websites we reviewed. This location offered primarily 2 bedroom 1.5ba townhouses for rent, which seemed like a well-timed balm to ease the pain we felt about not buying the house in Seattle we thought we would be moving into.
There were three "levels" of townhouses available, the highest of which was out of our rental budget. No problem, we were happy with levels 2 & 3. However, only level 1 had laundry in-unit. Innocently I asked to be shown where the laundry facilities for the rest of the residents of the 300 townhouses were. "Oh, we have two laundry rooms on site," our sales lady gushed, while I blanched. Two??? I asked to see one. Inside was not unlike a nice version of Bing Wong- 10 washers, 10 dryers, and a few chairs and tables.
CA and I were appalled. We were going to pay $XXXX to come home to our nice townhouse, then have to basically go to the laundromat? We moved on.
The second major contender was about 7 miles north near a very ritzy shopping mall. (In between the first and second were a number of "drive by's": CA would drive up to a place and I would nix it before we could even park. In my defense, it did make the day shorter.) Automatically rents skyrocketed to the point where a 1br 1ba "with den" was seriously pushing the limits of our rent budget. However, the location was very convenient to CA's job, and to life in general, and we hadn't seen anything better. I think CA was also very moved by the fact that there was a "community breakfast" every Saturday morning in the clubhouse.
I was now, however, on a mission. Mission Convenient Laundry. I did not require in-unit laundry, but I required a non-laundromat setup. I asked our sales rep the critical question: Where is the laundry for this unit? Her response was to take us from the third floor to the first and open the door to a tiny closet containing two washers and dryers. Which, as I quickly ascertained, were to service 43 apartments in that building. What???
In disbelief we asked, "what do people do about their laundry?" "Oh, most of them use a fluff-and-fold service," was the answer. So let me get this straight. I'm going to pay through the ass for an apartment that doesn't even have two bedrooms, and then on top of that I'm going to have to pay to get my laundry done? No thank you.
Suffice it to say, by the time we came to the place we now call home, and saw in the brochure that every unit has laundry in-unit, we were 9/10 to being sold. Thus it was that our dirty laundry dictated our living space.
posted by Mollynonymous | 8:49 AM
3 Comments:
It is always important to have certain things like that which help you choose where you live.
Ours were always air conditioning and a dishwasher. Although, having a pool made not having a dishwasher seem like a fair trade.
Plus, we don't actually mind the laundrymat, as illustrated by last nights' laundry trip, wherein we did 6 loads of laundry all at once and were finished in an hour and a half. THAT is what I call convenient laundry!
I can't speak to your new place, but I know that, for what these places were charging in rent, they should be offering to do my laundry and clean my apartment for me, not expect me to be paying someone else. I felt like I was being taken advantage of, which is no way to start a lease.
Oh I agree.
Housing these days is so atrocious that you gotta fight for what you can get.
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