16.Renting an apartment

Renting an apartment

Now that you have started your work you would like to move into your apartment rather than stay in the motel. Here is what you should know about renting an apartment. You can get information on how to rent an apartment from the "Apartments" section of the Yellow Pages, newspaper or “Rental Guides” which are available at the stores. To lease (rent) an apartment you should consider following points:

Lease period and deposits
Usually there are two types of lease depending on the period of lease: 6 months lease & 12 months lease. (In some places they allow 3-month lease too, but the rent increases in that case). Most of the cases you get 1 months rent free in case you select 12 months lease and you get half months rent free if you select 6 months lease. You have to pay 1 months rent as security deposit and some amount around 10$ to 15$ as key deposit. Rent for the apartment in basements is less than other apartments. Very few people prefer to stay in basements because of security reasons. So when you ask about availability of apartments it is possible that the Manager will say only basement apartment is available. Hence insist for apartment on first or second floor if you don't want a basement apartment. Otherwise after renting a basement apartment you will realize that apartments other than in basements were also available.

Utilities
Check whether your rent includes utilities such as hot water, Cable etc. Otherwise you end up spending around 100$ to 150$ for electricity bill if you have to pay for hot water.

Lease Terms
Understand the lease terms properly because most of the times you need to break the lease in case your project terminates suddenly. if you want to break the lease a. You have to give 30 days notice. b. You lose your security deposit c. In some cases they (the apartment management) try to find somebody who wants to rent your apartment. If they don't get anybody within 30 days period You have to pay 1 month's rent extra. In this situation you lose your security deposit plus one months rent. Get these terms clarified before signing the lease papers.

Lease Breaking
If you are sharing an apartment with somebody. Suppose 3 people are sharing an apartment and all three have their names on lease papers. In case one of the three wants to leave before the lease period is over, you need to take a letter from him saying that all further paper work can be done by the other two people. This letter is required when your lease period is over or even if you want to break the lease before that period is over. If you don't have such a letter you won't be able to break the lease unless all three have signed the lease break paper. In such cases you also end up losing your deposit. This is true even for normal termination of lease period. Be careful and understand these terms and conditions fully.

Damages
After renting an apartment carefully observe if there are any types of damages in the apartment. If you see any, ask your Property Manager to make a note of it. Otherwise they will deduct some amount from your security deposit when your lease period is over.

Downgrading and Upgrading
If you want to move to 2 bedroom apartment from 1 bedroom apartment you have to pay some 100$ to 200$. Many cases downgrading i.e. moving to 1 bedroom apartment from 2-bedroom apartment is not allowed. Get clarification on all such points while signing lease papers.

Electricity and Telephone connection
After you rent the apartment you need to inform your local Electric Supply company that you will be staying in that apartment from so and so date and that they may bill you from that date. Ask your local telephone company for a telephone connection by calling them up. Most of the business takes place on the phone. Surprisingly all work gets done and promptly too.

Maintaining an apartment
In most of the apartments you have cooking range, oven, dishwasher, refrigerator etc. Use aluminum foil to cover part of the cooking range (other than coils) so that it remains clean and in the end you don't need to spend time in cleaning it. Dishwasher soap is available in liquid or in powder form. Dishwasher inner surface starts becoming blackish after some days. The cleaning liquid can be used to clean it. This can be done once in a month. Clean your oven once in a month using oven-cleaning liquid. Use plastic garbage bags in trashcans so that you can just take the bag and dispose it in the central trash, usually provided in the apartment complex.

Laundry
If the apartment itself does not have a washer/dryer, there will usually be a common laundry room in the complex where you can do your weekly washing/drying. Such common machines usually are coin-operated machines so you'll need a few quarters and also your own favorite detergent powder.

Decorating, Furnishing YOUR house
Of course this is not an advice for interior designing but to make your APARTMENT look like a HOME. Home is not a place with four walls, but where you have furniture also :-). The greatest place to get the things you need for your house is Garage Sales. You can get things like Sofa sets to Wall paintings very cheep from this source. Everyone will be amazed if you have a full-furnished house in a few months.

Garage sale is a second-hand, used thing sale, which includes household items such as furniture like couch etc., appliances such as T.V., stereo, clothes/jackets, other used items.
This is held in people’s garages or backyards generally on weekends. They are a nice place to buy furniture from, which is usually in good shape. Anybody, who wants to sell old used things, can hold a garage sale and put up a sign near the house announcing such a sale. The prices are negotiable. Generally people advertise through local newspaper ad columns.

The early morning time on Sat. and Sun. between 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. is the best to hunt around for used things in garage sales.