Living Without Cable

and for a scary few weeks, without internet!

I have a confession to make: I’ve never lived in an apartment/house that didn’t include cable and internet. That includes my parents’ house growing up, residence in university, 2 university rentals, and 3 different post-university rentals. The cable and internet has always been included in my rental costs, except for an apartment that I had in university where the cable was just never disconnected so I had free cable for 2 years!! #opportunisticcriminal

As the move to this new apartment was so temporary, we decided to not get cable or internet while we were here. We figured it’d be 2 months (tops!) before our move to the condo. As it stands, the day after we moved in here, we got notification telling us to schedule our Pre-Delivery Inspection (PDI) for our unit. I was excited at the prospect of a move so soon following our move here (that meant we really wouldn’t have to unpack anything except bare essentials), but I was sceptical that this PDI would actually go through on April 16th, as planned. My pessimism was due to the facts that:

1. >90% of purchasers had their first PDIs cancelled
2. there was no permit yet for people to move in on our floor
3. we had taken our own private sneak peak at our unit and were missing things, including flooring, toilets, light switches, closet doors, door handles, etc.

Two days beforehand, we received notice that our PDI was cancelled. At this point, I had gone 2 weeks without cable and internet. If you’re thinking, “oh poor you #sarcasm #firstworldproblems”, you’re absolutely right! I never knew before how much I depended on cable and internet! In an act of desperation, I called Bell. Bell and Rogers are both offering pretty sweet deals to the purchasers of my condo so I wanted to see if I could get any kind of deal extended to this apartment for internet service. The gentleman at Bell was very nice, and offered a great deal in terms of monthly costs for internet (about $30 for a crapload of bandwidth), but the start-up cost was $50 and we’d be locked in for 2 years. Um, no thanks. I’ll stick to my DVDs and browsing internet on my iPhone for now. This whole process has made me seriously consider not going with either of the two major service providers this city offers and finding an independent that will offer a better package at a better cost!

After talking to the Bell guy, I thought about the tenants upstairs. Before we even moved in, I wondered if I would have the balls to ask them (a retiree and her daughter) if we could share their wifi (if they had it) and split the cost while we were in this apartment. They are both very very nice ladies, but I’m a wimp and couldn’t bring myself to ask them. I didn’t want them to think we were trying to take advantage, but I did see it as a win-win situation – if they had a decent amount of bandwidth, we could supplement their costs for it for a month or two and it wouldn’t affect them at all. Makes sense, right? I just had to muster up the nerve to ask. Turns out, my mom (their landlady) ended up asking them for me one day while she was here doing maintenance and they were totally fine with it! They said have unlimited bandwidth (whaaaaaaaaat? I didn’t know such a thing existed!) and they didn’t want our money. We insisted several times, but they were adamant. Since we have a car and they don’t, I’ve offered to take them to the store/grocery shopping while we live here. I have a feeling they’ll never take us up on that offer either, so we’ll probably just end up getting them something to show them our appreciation before we move out.

How’s that for a feel-good story with a happy ending!? I now have internet and am a happy lady. I’ve been streaming TV, which feels like such a luxury! And I’ve learned that internet hands down beats cable. So much so, in fact, that I think we could actually do without cable altogether and save ourselves that added monthly expense!

We're Moving!

But not to the condo. Not yet anyways.

The end of this month marks 2 years since I moved into the apartment in which I'm currently living. When I signed my lease, I thought I wouldn't be here past the end of 2012. At the beginning of this year, my landlady tried to bully/coerce me into paying substantially more money for rent (over and above what she can legally increase the rent by), so we gave notice to leave. Turns out, unbeknownst to me, that she was also preggo at the time that we had our aggressive, emotionally charged back-and-forthing, so that may have had a bit to do with the harsh words that were exchanged. I don't like being bullied, and turns out, I'm as predictably emotional as the rest of the preggos out there, which made for a rough couple weeks.

In a stroke of serendipitous timing, my parents have been having issues with their tenants for the past few months and they'll be vacating my parents' rental property the same time we're leaving our one, so that's where we'll be living until the condo is completed. The new place has a bath tub - something I haven't had for 2 years! My current apartment has the TINIEST stand-up shower, at just under 2x3ft... as in, tiny enough that it rivals the tiny showers on cruise ships. So i'm really really really looking forward to having a bath.

In terms of updates of when we're moving in, here's where we're at:
Occupancy permits have been granted for all floors up to 3 levels below us, and people as close as the floor below us have their pre-delivery inspections (PDIs) scheduled for the end of this month. At this point, I'm not getting too excited about that because there have been cases when people have done the PDIs for their units when there were still a large number of deficiencies (ie: missing counters or cabinets, incomplete flooring, unconnected hood fans for the oven, etc). It was supposed to take 1-2 weeks per floor for permits to be issued, but the builder is averaging 1 floor per month. According to the builder, our floor will achieve the occupancy permit by March 27, but the project manager for the condo is "pessimistic that will happen".

My thoughts:
I hope we get our occupancy date by May. I don't want to move in the hot months of July or August. And as I'll be at the end of my second trimester at the end of May, I think it would be ideal to move before then as well.

Obviously these are just all nice-to-haves and we don't get to choose when we're moving. And finally, as the final occupancy dates and have been given and have all passed, the builders are giving people very little notice for moving in... as in less than a week's notice. That sucks. A lot. Some people are really chomping at the bit to move in, but I don't really feel that same urgency. The building still has a lot of construction going on the and the dust levels are crazy high right now. Obviously the later your move in date, the more complete of a building you're moving in to, which means decreased dust and construction.

Photo credits:
Emotional preggo
Moving preggo

I’m Moving!!

This has been a long time coming. Over the past 7 months I have been living like a transient bum…mostly at Kevin’s parents’ house, somewhat in my car, and infrequently at my parents’ house (it’s mostly just the place I stored my things). The last 7 months have been rough, to say the least. When I posted about our landlord selling our house, leaving us strapped, and causing us to temporarily move back to our parents house, the comments spoke volumes lol.

But did I listen?.. well yeaaah, but I was kind of in a jam and I was stupidly naive that the condo completion date wasn’t going to be crazy delayed… which it HAS

The last 7 months have honestly been the most stressful in my life! There’s no break from the stress. I like stability and control, and my desire for those things grew exponentially in the time that Kevin and I lived together…control for things like food, noises, temperature. Basically I’ve just realized that in the almost 10 years that I’ve been away from home (summer breaks from university excluded), I’ve become a person who really doesn’t play well with others (cohabitation-wise) because I have LOW TOLERANCE for things that annoy me, which is mostly noises…

• loud talking
• TVs and radios on ALL THE TIME
• chewing noises… oh dear gawd, the chewing noises!! AHHHH!!!!!
• and temperature control was a big issue. It was regularly 14C in my room in the winter, hence my desire to spend almost all my time at Kevin’s parents’ house.

So, the point is I found a place to live. It’s close to my work, the rent is very close to what we paid before, the lease is flexible, it includes digital cable, hi-speed internet, and parking, and I can have my cat there! The landlord full-on wrote NO PETS in capital letters on her ad for the apartment, but I still went to check it out. I got a feeling my future landlord liked me so I spilled the beans and said I could only live there if I could bring my cat. She made a face and was like, “sigh…. fine”. Yippee!!

Unfortunately I’ve been pretty sick over the last couple weeks with intense abdominal pain – my doctor thinks I have kidney stones, which has led to several nightmares – so moving is gonna SUCK… I didn’t think it could really suck less, as evidenced here, but I was wrong.. so wrong.

So if you got this far in my rambling post, the moral of the story is DON’T MOVE BACK HOME!! The strain on my relationship with my parents was not worth it. I didn’t save any more money than I did when we were at our apartment because I had to get a car and it ain’t cheap. And I felt like a loser for living at home in my twenties.

So...My Old Apartment Is Listed on Craigslist

My uncle, a real estate agent, came over on Saturday and informed me that the house Kevin and I were living in is still on the market (I already knew though because I check it regularly on MLS), but that our old landlord did get an offer for the house. That offer fell through. My uncle asked me if I thought he would re-rent the upstairs apartment in the meantime. I'd checked a while ago, but not recently, so I went onto Craigslist (the method our landlord used when we found the apartment) to do some sleuthing. 

Guess what? He's got it listed. What a shocker....

$925 / 1br - 650ft² - Bright, clean, recently updated 2nd fl. apmt, Central A/C, all-inclu.

This listing is for an unfurnished, UNbasement ;) clean, bright and quiet apartment on the 2nd floor of a house. There is hardwood throughout with a separate entrance off the main hallway.

Rent includes all utilities, cable with most specialty channels, hi-speed Wi-Fi internet. Sorry no laundry facility but there is a Laundromat literally 2 minutes walking distance.
Ample street parking and permit is $14/month from the city.
This apartment is well-suited for a young professional who enjoys quiet M-F evenings but comes alive on the weekends. ***Rent for couples is $975; 1st and last months rent required upon signing.
Not suited for families.

HA!

There is so much wrong with this listing!

650ft² 

I measured the apartment while living there to make as accurate as possible a floor plan on floorplanner.com. If you include everything (stairs, closets, space taken up with counters, etc), the apartment is 504 square feet. I don't know where he came up with the extra 146 square feet...

Central A/C

The kitchen didn't have a working vent and the living room had little/no insulation on the exterior walls or floor. We had fans/heaters going about 10 months a year.

Hardwood

The kitchen is poorly installed laminate and the rest was hardwood, but was original and in desperate need of replace (re: stained with a bad shellacking job). People regularly told us they felt like they were on a boat because the floor was so crooked.  

Separate Entrance

I don't know how he's gonna get around this one... The entrance is most definitely shared.

When Kevin and I first saw this listed a couple years ago, he had it posted at $925. Then he lowered the price to $825 a few weeks later, so we went for a viewing. We knew the place was small, but we also knew that it was temporary and that we'd be able to save a bunch of money towards a down payment - and we did exactly that. (It also included laundry, but we had to walk through his unit to do it... which I admit, must've sucked for him, but we set up a schedule with him and only did laundry on Monday nights).

I know I sound like I'm ragging on my old landlord a lot, but I just don't get this guy. When I told him last year that Kevin and I bought a condo, he asked if we planned on staying until it was built and I told him we definitely would. He seemed relieved not to have to find new tenants. But then a few months later he told me he wanted to put the house up for sale, so we gave notice and left. Living in a space where you constantly have strangers walking through is not fun. He told me his intention was to sell the house and rent an apartment downtown with his friend. 

Whaaaat??...

If I owned a duplex house, and had secured tenants in one of the units, I would just get tenants for the other unit if I were planning on becoming a renter again. I never asked him, so I'll never know his reasons, but doesn't it seem weird that he's selling to become a renter?

Anyhow, long story short: He listed the house way too high (according to my uncle and all the real estate agents that came by for the open houses) so it hasn't sold yet and now he's looking to re-rent the upstairs unit again, but this time for 18% more than we paid and not including laundry anymore...

If he wanted more rent, he should've just upped the rent a bit while we were living there - that's totally reasonable and to be honest, we expected it! Because now, even if he gets the higher rent ($975), he's already lost 3 months of rent since we left (including October). So over the next 12 months, assuming best case scenario (he gets a couple in there for $975 starting Nov 1st), he'll be down $675. If he gets a single person in there who would pay $925, he’ll be down even more with $1275 in lost rent.

Date	Our Rent	New Rent (Couple)	New Rent (Single)
Aug-11	$825	-	-
Sep-11	$825	-	-
Oct-11	$825	-	-
Nov-11	$825	$975	$925
Dec-11	$825	$975	$925
Jan-12	$825	$975	$925
Feb-12	$825	$975	$925
Mar-12	$825	$975	$925
Apr-12	$825	$975	$925
May-12	$825	$975	$925
Jun-12	$825	$975	$925
Jul-12	$825	$975	$925
Aug-12	$825	$975	$925
Sep-12	$825	$975	$925
Oct-12	$825	$975	$925
TOTAL	$12,375	$11,700	$11,100

I know it’s not a huge amount, but I’ve always been taught a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush!

P.S. Feel free to laugh if you thought this because I totally did: Maybe he hated us and thought we were horrible tenants and this was all a huge ploy to get rid of me and Kevin... 

Packed Up and Shipped Out

Kevin and I lived in our apartment for 2 years and 2 months - it was the first time either of us had ever lived with a significant other, so I think it'll always be special to us.

That said, moving was tough. Apparently, I don't deal well with open houses. Our landlord was kind of a jerk about it and wasn't giving us nearly enough notice - he's supposed to give 24 hours, but we'd always get less, sometimes only 1 hour's notice. At first, I felt like I should be accommodating, then I got upset about strangers traipsing through our place, then I got bitter and stopped trying to make the place presentable (We were moving after all!).

The last week was probably the hardest because we were living with next to nothing. No couches, no TV, next to no food, no computer, no seats at all... and Riley had already been brought to my parents' house. I would get home from work a realize I couldn't watch TV, go on the computer, or even sit anywhere (except for the bed). Ergo, I spent a lot more time napping than I should have - this was my way of procrastinating with packing. Because let me tell you, even when you think you're almost done, you're not. You're not even close. You still have more to do than you realize or want to even think about!

I finally got the pictures that the realtor used for the MLS listing, so here are the before and after pictures I promised. (I realize the "after" pictures are small, but there was SO MUCH dust in the air so the pictures weren't coming out properly...I think you can click on the image to enlarge it)

 I know the bathroom shot doesn't have any "after" pictures, but it looked pretty much the same - I just took back my extra medicine cabinet and changed back the shower curtain.

I'm almost settled into my new place. Kevin and I have done some trading of furniture in the last week because he had some stuff I use regularly and I had some stuff he used.

It's Official: The House is on the Market

This is what I came home to yesterday. And a text from my landlord saying he's holding an open house this weekend. I photoshopped out some of the For Sale sign details. I hate that we have to find another place to live before we move to the condo! The whole situation really frustrates me. He asked me last year if we planned on staying on because he was wanted to know if he'd have to find new tenants and I told him we would definitely stay here until the condo was done. Think less of me all you want, but I'm feeling bitter and vengeful right now and I'm hoping this house takes months to sell. Ugh.

My Weekend Follies

Up until Sunday, I didn't do much this weekend. Kevin and I hung out at a bar with some friends on Friday, and then hung out at another bar with some other friends on Saturday (Sara and Darcy, from this post, who are soon to be travelling around Asia for 4-months!!). I did manage to finally get around to baking so I could put my cake stand to use! I made cupcakes instead of a full-on cake because I have a cupcake carrier. In theory, I could more easily bring cupcakes to work to share with my co-workers. In reality, I'm addicted to sugar and have already eaten at least 15 cupcakes. Three cupcakes lost their lives in this photo shoot alone. 

But can you blame me?? They're French vanilla with raspberry cream cheese icing! They're super pink because I used a new food colouring and mistakenly thought it was less concentrate than the kind I regularly use. 

On a less gluttonous note...well I guess this still has to do with eating... I went on something called the Edible Tree Tour with some people in my Meetup group. 

Each year Toronto’s urban forest produces millions of pounds of edible treats.  Follow our knowledgeable leaders - and your taste buds - through Toronto's urban forest and discover what appetizing delights await you.

Learn about urban harvesting with Laura Reinsborough from Not Far From The Tree, then explore the Ben Nobleman community orchard with Susan Poizner of Growing for Green.  Uncover delectable edibles in unexpected places with LEAF's Amanda Gomm, and learn how to glean what you've seen with foraging tips and tricks from Forbes Wild Foods. Forbes' jellies, syrups and tree goodies will be available for tasting and sale giving you the chance to satisfy any new-found cravings.

I'm not gonna lie - I thought there would be more eating and less talking, but it was interesting nonetheless. Gary was on the walk and asked today if I took notes. It has been well-established that I'm a horrible note-taker, and case-in-point as this is all I wrote on my iPhone's notepad:

• Conifer trees are high in vitamin C
• If the animals are eating the berries, they're edible
• Juniper is used to make gin

The hike was was over 2 hours and that's all I managed to write lol At least I got this picture of a crab apple

On another note, my dad came over on Sunday to take a truck load of our furniture back to my parents' house. The kitchen table and chairs were the biggest item to go. The kitchen looks so empty now. We have just over 2 weeks until we move out, and I'm really not looking forward to it. Moving sucks. When I was in university, all of my friends said they want to travel as much as they can and work in different countries and cities. Not me! I was always the one saying I want to get a government job and buy a house, and then work at that job until I retire and live in that same house until I die.

Definitely not gonna happen, but a girl can dream!

How was your weekend?  

Realtor Photos

My landlord's realtor came by this evening to take pictures of our apartment. I rushed home to do some quick cleaning up before he came because Kevin said he couldn't find his August metropass and tore the apartment apart this morning looking for it. I thought he was kidding - he was not. It literally looked like we'd been robbed when I came home. Like the apartment had been RANSACKED! If I hadn't been in such a rush to clean it up before the realtor arrived I would've taken a picture.

This isn't our place, but if you replace the baby toys with flyers and clothes it's pretty close to how it looked when I got home!

{via}

I had planned  to use this opportunity to take pictures of the apartment too... but then I asked the realtor if I could see his pictures (because he had a very fancy lens on his very expensive camera) and they were waaaay better than any pictures I would've taken! His lens was super wide so he could practically get the whole room in one shot. I asked him if he could send them to me - he (begrudgingly) took my email address, so I'll share those once I get them.


Also, the Realtor tried to tell me our apartment is 650 square feet - Ha! Yeeeeah RIGHT! I've measured the unit, room-by-room, wall-to-wall and it came out at 504 square feet. That's including non-usable space like where the counters are, the stairs, closets, etc. He said square footage is calculated by measuring the maximum length by the maximum width of the dwelling. Is that true? If it is, that sucks!