I had read horror stories and personal accounts about how frustrating and stressful apartment-hunting in San Francisco is, so why we only gave ourselves three full days to do a search and signing, I may never know. What follows is a tale of two fellows' journey to the west coast, with the occasional cameo by one said fellow's girlfriend (hint: not mine, because I don't have one).
The Cast: Me, JSze (the roommate), MHK (the roommate's girlfriend)
Day One - Tuesday: The Flight
It seems likely that there would be an eventful and interesting story about having to fly through Atlanta to get to San Francisco from Boston. You'd think there'd be hiccups and delays and frustrations to start out the trip, or at least some anecdotal story of amusement. You'd think that; but you'd be wrong. The flight was smooth and there was not much of note at the hotel near the airport in which we stayed--well, I guess the swarms of young European women were somewhat interesting, if you're into that sort of thing (I could be).
Oh wait, we did play a three-way game of War on the beginning of the flight from ATL in which I made an EPIC comeback from having only 4 cards left near the beginning to overcoming all odds in the end to secure a decisive victory over MHK and JSze--possibly a foreshadowing of the trials and tribulations I would overcome in days to come . . .
Day Two - Wednesday: The Panic
The first task of the day was to stop by our future office in downtown San Francisco. We were blown away. It was a slick office with 24" monitors at each workstation, which incidentally had plenty of room to compliment the brand new hardware. I'll have to discipline myself not to use any of the vast real-estate to watch movies while I work so as to not to get fired. There was only one person that was working at the office the day we got there--a woman who unfortunately started Monday, missing the office-wide trip to Dubai. Anyways, she was helpful in giving us a list of potential neighborhoods to check out (several of which we had been looking at on Craigslist).
So our first scheduled appointment was at 1pm, in or around Nob Hill. The street looked a little sketchy to me, and the rent was exorbitant--well over our initial desired rent cost ceiling, but we figured it would be good to see. A part of me hoped that I'd like it so much that I had to take it, but then I really didn't want to pay that much, either. Fortunately (I guess), I hated it and we simply just wasted our time. Note to landlords of San Francisco: thick, reddish-orange carpetting + foul odors != $2444/mo. Thanks, but no thanks.
We proceeded to walk around Nob Hill for a while calling numbers of For Rent Signs only to find that the only things available seemed to be either Studios, 1 BRs, or super expensive 2BRs. We moved on.
At this point we decided to drop off our stuff at the hotel--couldn't check in yet because there wouldn't be an available room until later. We then ventured south to the Mission District--a fairly urban area with lots of Latinos. It seemed pretty cool, and we were much more excited about that area than the streets we saw earlier up in the city. There was a 2 bedroom apartment near the 24th and Mission St. Bart station that we were able to check out. We grabbed the keys from the agency and walked over to view the apartment. I'm not sure whether we were still recovering from the horror that was 1445 Larkin, or if the apartment actually was pretty cool, but we immediately liked it (note: MHK hated this place upon her viewing a couple days later). And for $400+ less a month than that other place, it seemed like a good deal. There was another woman and her daughter checking out the place when we were there so we felt that there was probably pressure to make a quick decision, and I had read that if you were interested in a place, you have to act fast.
As we walked back to the agency, we talked about whether or not we should just "take the apartment." Now, I don't know how many of you have hunted for apartments in San Francisco, but regardless of how prepared you are with paper work for applying for a place, a statement like, "Hey, why don't we just go back to the office and sign for this now and then we can just hang out for the rest of the week," has the equivalent naivety as a 5-year old saying, "Hey, why don't I just walk a block or two north to Santa Claus and drop off this letter now and so I don't have to worry about mailing it later this year."
We went back to the agency and filled out their application and proudly attached our prepared packet of proof of employment, credit reports, and previous rental history. Our hearts sank as the woman told us it would take 2-3 business days to go over the application. Holy Shit!
We didn't have 2-3 Business days. Hell, we barely had 2-3 regular days! Panic set in to the first realization that there was a chance that we wouldn't be able to sign a lease before we jumped on the plane back to Boston.
The next two places we viewed were in the Richmond neighborhood. Quiet, stale, and lifeless. BUT we looked anyway just to see what the places were like. These were our first open houses and just like in the stories I had read, people showed up in droves, expressing great interest. Even though we didn't love the places (I'd venture to say we didn't even like the places), we put our information in as a safety net. The layout of both apartments we viewed were awkward. One was painted smurf blue on the outside, with matching blue paint on some of the windows to block out the view of ... well, nothing. The other place was a basement apartment was OK, but still, it was in Richmond, and it was still a weird-ass layout. Besides, the guy practically said that he had someone in mind already because he liked the guys.
Disappointed, and in despair, we walked over to the Inner Sunset area, where we didn't have an appointment but wanted to see anyway just to compare to the other neighborhoods. It had a very college-like feel to it and we immediately liked it. There was a little more activity on the streets and it was definitely a younger crowd. We decided we should look into this area a little bit further on Craigslist. We weren't sure if we would be able to find too much, but one thing was clear: We hated the Richmond.
After dinner, we went back to the city to meet up with MHK and another friend at the mall. I'm going to take this opportunity to try to express in words the amount of good looking women in the SF area . . . A LOT (easier than I thought, but much less profound than intended). I'm pretty sure I fell in love about 14 times that night. In anycase, the day was pretty much over and JSze and I went back to the hotel, while MHK went back to her friend's place in Pac Heights.
By the way, upon checking in to the hotel--I guess because it is San Francisco and we were two younger, clean cut guys--the hotel clerk assumed we wanted a single King Size bed instead of two separate ones. FYI: not the case (not that there's anything wrong with that).
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