T-Minus 15 Days

I have just about two weeks until I leave Laramie forever and move into my grown-up apartment in Denver. As the date gets closer and closer, I’m realizing just how much I need to do to get ready to move. More than just packing up my stuff, it’s wrapping up my life here and preparing for my life down in Denver.

Now, I’m a big fan of procrastination, but I think in this case I’m going to start preparing early. I’ve moved four times in the past four years and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that things always take longer than you think they will. So here are some of the basics:

1. Pack, pack, pack
Starting next weekend, I’m going to start packing up things that I know I won’t need in my last week here, like my extra dishes, winter clothes, and everything on my dressers and bookcases. If I haven’t used it in the past month, it’s probably going into a box. Then, in the three days before I move out, I’ll do my serious packing. I am always amazed by the sheer volume of items that I manage to fit into my tiny living quarters and I doubt that I’ll be able to get it all done in one day. Tip: Instead of buying cardboard boxes from a store (where the cheapest you’ll probably be able to find them is $1-$3 a box—crazy!), hit up the recycling bins behind stores. The boxes may be a little banged up and used, but they’re free!

2. Clean my apartment
Considering that this apartment was a dump when I moved in (and I mean disgusting, filthy), I am positive that even if I did no cleaning, I would still be leaving this place in better condition than when I moved in. But it’s still your responsibility as a renter to clean up the place before you leave: vacuum the carpet, mop the floors, clean the surfaces in the bathroom and kitchen, defrost the freezer, etc. That’s going to be a long, dirty day. Tip: I didn’t take as detailed photos as I should have when I moved in, a mistake I won’t be repeating when I move in to my new apartment. Be sure to take photos of everything when you move in—the floors, the walls, the cabinets, the appliances—to make sure that there’s no funny business when it’s time to get your security deposit back.

3. Cancel my utilities here, set them up there
Kind of a pain, but something that I can’t forget to do. I also need to set up my forwarding address with the post office and change my address with all of my bills and magazines. Tip: If you are leaving your residence before your cable contract is up, contact your cable company about transferring your service to your new address. Since I’m moving out of Bresnan’s service area, I am going to transfer my service to my sister’s new apartment. That way I don’t have to pay an early cancellation fee or pay for three months of service I’m not using.

So I think those are the big tasks. Then comes everyone's favorite activity: unpacking. But since I'll have about a month of time to kill until my new job starts, at least it will give me something to do!

Taking the Plunge

Since I recently did some apartment shopping, I thought I would share some tips I picked up along the way. Before finally finding my dream apartment (see previous post), I visited three other apartment complexes and had different experiences at all of them. Here are some preparation steps you may want to take and some questions you may want to ask when looking for your own place.

1. Do your research
I spent hours online looking at dozens of apartments before deciding on a few to visit. Rental Web sites are great resources that can save you a lot of time. Sites like Rent.com and Apartments.com offer really helpful information like floor plans, photos, maps, amenity lists, pricing, rental policies and more. They also allow you to keep favorites lists and do very specific searching by neighborhood. In my experience, Rent.com often provided more information than the apartment’s own Web site.

2. Ask lots of questions
When you do decide to visit an apartment, be sure to ask questions, don’t just walk around and look at stuff. I found that once I got up to the apartments, my mind would go blank and I couldn’t think of anything to ask, so I started writing my questions down. Here are some that I found the most helpful.

- What kinds of people live here? Families? Young, single people?
- What are the utilities like in the summer and winter? Can they show you an example bill?
- What are the most common maintenance requests?
- How old is the building?
- What fees are associated with the monthly rent (garbage, parking, etc.)?
- Is the apartment pre-wired for high-speed Internet and cable? Do they allow satellite dishes?
- Do they offer preferred employer pricing? (I got 2% knocked off my rent for working at Dish Network.)

3. Pay attention to how you are treated
When you go to look at an apartment, since staff should be working to sell it to you, they should be on their best behavior. So if you are treated poorly, you know there is something really wrong. At one apartment I wanted to look at, they scheduled me to come in on a day when the rental office was closed and then didn’t return any of my calls. No matter how much I liked the apartment, those aren’t the kind of people I wanted to be relying on when my hot water isn’t working or my garbage disposal is clogged. At another complex, the staff members who accompanied me to look at the apartment seemed to know very little about the unit or the complex and couldn’t answer many of my questions. A disinterested and uninvolved staff could spell trouble for you as a tenant.

4. Trust your gut
For me, making the decision and signing the rental application was a huge and very scary step. What if I chose the wrong place? What if I didn’t like it when I moved in? What if one of the first big decisions of my adult life turned out to be completely wrong?! The truth is, the apartment I finally went with was very similar to another I looked at (in fact, I found out later they are managed by the same company). But the one I chose just felt right. Once you have all the facts and have looked at enough apartments to have an idea of what is out there, don’t be afraid to trust your instincts when it comes to finally settling with one. I don’t know if I am going to love or hate this apartment when my year-long lease is up, but I feel confident that I made the best decision I could based on the information I had.

So go forth and be smart about finding your new, fabulous apartment. I’m sure I’ll have many more residences over the years and still have a lot to learn about shopping for a place, but I feel like for a first-timer I did pretty well!