The apartment hunt: take two

August 15, 2009

It’s hot. 

I am so glad we are not having to deal with the third trimester of a pregnancy in this heat.  Angie is miserable enough dealing with this heat in the first trimester. 

She’s not sleeping.

That’s not normal.

My wife usually falls asleep at 8:30 p.m. and is out until the next morning.  She’s slept through car accidents right outside the apartment, gun shots (only once in Harlem), monster thunderstorms and even the riotous hilarity of The Venture Bros. 

But she can’t sleep. 

So, we’re dealing with heat.  And humidity.  And walking with a broker through Astoria.

We told her specifically where we wanted to be.  She showed us one apartment in the area but it was tiny.  We saw lots of apartments that were fine…  Just fine. 

It’s New York City real estate.  It’s impossible.  It’s a game.  It’s a chess match where you pay someone up to 15% of the annual rent to find you an apartment in which the floors are intact and the roof has not caved in.

We walked and walked and walked.

Being superstitious we have not told anyone about the pregnancy.  So our broker, who was quite nice, thought a walk to the furthest reaches of Astoria would be fun.

We found nothing.

We went to meet someone about a place that looked promising at the last stop of the train on Ditmars Avenue. 

We may have taken it if not for the cockroaches crawling on the countertops or inside the cupboards. 

I quickly escorted my newly pregnant wife out.

We stopped for a brief lunch to escape the heat. 

Angie had two more on her list.  No broker, no fees.  Just a landlord with an apartment to rent.

We walked into the first and were pleasantly surprised.  It was funny, but we have vision.  And it fit all of our criteria.

Down the street, 100 feet away lay our perfect home. Just big enough for us to grow for quite a while and perfect in every way.

I had been the one to contact a broker, thinking that was the ideal way to find the best place. 

I was the reason my pregnant wife had to trek across Astoria on a 90 degree day. 

Me. 

My wife had contacted two apartments.

They were perfect.  They were two blocks from a train.  They were within spitting distance of each other.

And at the end of a long day, they were the only ones we needed to see.

The point:

Sometimes our need to be providers gets in the way of our common sense.  I was determined to find the perfect place, to see everything.  I didn’t care what it cost. 

It shouldn’t have to cost anything, and didn’t.