Yes, it's getting old... We're like nomads... George Clooney in Up in the Air... Gypsies traveling the back country... No matter which way you dice it, we move a lot. But, at least this time we signed a one year lease.
It all, unfortunately, started because the house we were renting went into foreclosure, so there was no option for us to renew our lease. It was a shame, the house was a great spot with an amazing kitchen. But, all is well that ends well. As the new hunt began we wanted to focus on finding a place with a yard for the dogs to hang out outside; but the problem we kept running into was that either the houses in our price range were complete dumps or any decent house was either too expensive or didn't allow dogs. So the house route was not coming easily, which only stressed us out as the time for us to move out kept creeping up.
Somewhere along the way the word townhouse popped onto our radar. There seemed to be a much more diverse and more available market for townhouses so off we went checking out at least a dozen of them. Then we found it - our dream townhouse. It was on Beloit Avenue, between Santa Moncia Blvd. and Olympic Blvd. Brand new re-model, hardwood floors, completely wired for internet and surround sound, great kitchen, THREE LEVELS, majestic... Pop...the sound of our bubble crashing all around us. This place was $2,400 a month. But the mahogany hardwood floors, wired ethernet, surround sound and the three levels... Nothing... Too expensive. It still hurts to think about.
It was tough, but we had to move on and leave Beloit behind us. It didn't help that the other townhouses we were seeing were falling apart or didn't have wood floors or didn't have built in wiring...we were beginning to get desperate. About to leave for Hawaii for Christmas and be homeless two short weeks after that we started looking at any ad resembling a townhouse on Craigslist. Forget pictures, we'll drive by. What do you know - look hard enough and under enough rocks and sure enough we found a two-line Craigslist posting for a townhouse in Culver City/Palms. Something about new appliances and plenty of room. We call. As it would turn out, the place is brand-new construction, they're not even completely finished yet. Stainless steel brand new appliances, new everything and the rent, well the rent was in the "teen-hundereds" well below our previous low/mid two-thousand's rentals. Unheard of, was there a catch? No dogs, no parking, something? Nothing. It was perfect. We filled out the application and had a conditional agreement to take one of the units as soon as we got back from Hawaii. We would be the first tenants in the building and had the picking of any unit we wanted. That made going to Hawaii a lot less stressful and by the time we got back, we were ready to pick our new place.
It was a good two or three weeks before anyone else moved into the building. We had once again rented a truck - this time a refrigerated truck because Ryder ran out of regular trucks - and bugged Elijah and Diana to help us out and managed to get everything moved in one afternoon. This time, we promised ourselves that we would unpack everything that first weekend and not have boxes all around us for the first three months. And so it was done. With this move came losing a garage for storage which meant we couldn't be pack-rats and have four storage bins of stuff. Part of the unpacking meant consolidating. And so four 54-gallon tubs turned into one, with the excess meeting the trash or the Goodwill donation bin.
Who knows how long we'll stay at this place - knowing us we'll start itching to move next year, but do we really want to deal with moving around the holidays again?? Doubtful. Will we most likely be hiring movers the next time? Yes - we've done our share of moving. In the meantime we have really enjoyed our new townhouse and have lucked out with some great neighbors moving into our building. Looks like a fun year ahead in our new place!
