phira's Profile

I love your apartment! This is one of the few apartments in this contest that I look at and think, "I would definitely live there!" It's just beautifully arranged.

The Boston entries in this contest are always so amazing! Your apartment is beautiful!

Really disappointed that there aren't any pictures of the lofts/bedroom.

Yeah, we need to invest in a better vacuum. Or at least one I don't hate to use! We have a budgie, so our living room floor is covered in seeds and seed hulls, as well as feathers and (sorry, folks) little budgie poops. We end up tracking seeds all throughout the house because we don't vacuum enough.

We have 4. Back in college, I had a double to myself and turned one bed into a couch using a couple of king-sized pillows. Since then, I've always loved having two king-sized pillows behind the standard pillows we sleep on.

My house growing up sometimes got mice (we lived in the woods!), and two apartments I've lived in were owned by slum lords and had mice. Here's what I did, and what did and didn't work:

- Look up the state sanitary code for your state. It might not be a fun read, but it's informative about renter's rights. In Massachusetts, the land lord is 100% responsible for getting rid of pests. If your land lord is obligated to deal with the mice and doesn't take care of it in a timely manner (and a legal one--one of ours used poison that wasn't cleared for residential use), call your town/city's board of health. Additionally, if the land lord is supposed to take care of the problem, then any traps you buy, save the receipts and deduct the traps from rent.

- I put down humane traps. I have a small bird who acts like a dog, and he would have gotten into most kill-traps. These don't work as well as kill-traps because many mice are smart enough to get the bait and get out. The best humane traps I've used were the mouse cubes, which are very simple.

- I put traps in places I knew the mice were running. My mice are usually pretty bold and I've seen them running around. Mice tend to stick to walls, so pushing the traps up against the walls, facing in one direction or another, tends to do the trick. Make sure you find ways to keep lighter traps right-side-up; I've had mice get in them and find ways to roll the trap over to get free.

- Check traps every day. Even in humane traps, mice can die quickly, and you don't want smelly dead mouse everywhere, especially if you're using kill-traps!

- Seal up edibles and clean up any crumbs. This worked in one of my apartments--but only in the spring. In the winter, those mice stuck around because it was nice and warm inside!

My partner is reluctant to buy a house at any point in our lives, since we would always have a mortgage, and the bank would truly own the house. I feel differently about that situation, but I certainly am in no rush to own, even when we marry and have children. I don't pay property taxes, and if something breaks, the landlord fixes it.

I'm looking forward to owning a house, when we can make whatever changes we want (update the kitchen, redo closets, renovate the bathroom). But in the meantime, renting is a choice, and not "what you do until you get a house."

I rented an apartment from a slumlord who very clearly did not understand state rental laws. Most of the time, it wasn't a problem, since the guy was so absentee, we could do whatever we wanted. However, at the end of our lease during our second year, things fell apart.

The previous year, we'd received a letter in May asking us to reply by June 1st with whether or not we were planning on staying another year. We received no letter the following year. The landlord hadn't sent us signed copies of the lease either, so if the lease stipulated we needed to give 3 months notice, there was no way for us to know because he'd broken the law. State law says we don't need to give any notice--if we don't sign another lease, it just means we plan to leave.

Landlord was very upset. His manager (we never spoke to the landlord or met him even once--everything was done through the manager) called and yelled at us for not giving notice. Then realtors started showing up without notice, so we would not let them come in (again, state law was on our side). The realtors would harass us about it, and then call the landlord, who would have the manager call us.

In retaliation for requiring 24 hours notice about realtors (again, state law!), the landlord sent us an eviction notice. Not only were our names (and HIS OWN NAME) misspelled, but there were 1) no grounds for eviction, and 2) he wanted us out a day before the end of the lease. We figured out why--he had promised to paint and professionally clean the apartment for the new tenants, and decided we had to be out a day early in order to achieve that. Obviously, this is not how eviction works, in any state.

We decided not to sue him, because we were broke, we were leaving in a few weeks, and we're not sure we had grounds to sue him for being an idiot, but it was really stressful. We didn't trust the landlord, and were concerned he would send people over on the 30th to clear out our stuff while we were at work, and change the locks. While that would have been illegal on his part, it wouldn't stop being stressful! Fortunately, nothing ever happened, and we got out of there unscathed.

My partner and I moved in together about 6 months ago, and could not be happier! Congratulations!

I am definitely happy that we both moved in to a new apartment, instead of one person moving into the other person's apartment. It made it a lot easier to mix everything together and make "our space." I also recommend sitting down and talking very specifically about your design and set-up needs.

Here's what I mean: My partner wanted to be able to spend some time alone sometimes. He also wanted his bookshelves in the living room, and he likes having large coffee table with storage. He also likes to sleep on one side of the bed, but he also wants that one side pushed up against a wall.

Meanwhile, I wanted to sleep on whichever side of the bed had a nightstand, and I prefer to have cleared surfaces in the living room. I also don't like having my laundry basket outside of my closet, and I needed my desk to be in the second bedroom because I can't get work done in the living room.

In the end, we had to work out some compromises. The second bedroom is our office, and because my partner uses it for "me time" and I use it for work, the general rule is that we don't chit-chat while we're both in there. We found a location for our bed that met our needs, and we managed to find a good IKEA coffee table that has storage, but doesn't look cluttered when we're not using items. Stuff like that!

Household chores tend to be shared, with some exceptions. My partner has OCD and cannot easily clean the bathroom, while I irrationally hate taking out the trash. He also needs to do laundry more frequently than I do, so he's in charge of it. I like the dishes put away a certain way, so I'm in charge of unloading the dishwasher.

You will need to make sacrifices--both of you are used to keeping your space a certain way, and it's hard to adjust. Just keep communicating, and focus on the positives!

For people who are saying that cohabitation prior to marriage is a bad idea, I whole-heartedly disagree. While I don't judge anyone for waiting until marriage or engagement to move in together, cohabitating before marriage does not make engagement or marriage less special. And cohabitation does not directly lead to divorce! I love living with my partner; we can see each other every day, and the money we save we are putting towards our wedding, getting out of debt, and maybe eventually a house downpayment. And living with him has made it so much clearer that he's the person I want to marry.

This is a great idea! Unfortunately, since I have a huge exam mid-January, and I usually do a big apartment clean before the new year, I won't be participating. It'll be interesting to see what happens; I might sign up for the emails anyway!