Apartment hunting woes

So last night I began the tedious process of visiting potential apartments. Well, one. The first place I wanted to check out I never ended up going to.

I called the contact number listed, and got a really indistinct answering machine/service. I left a message, and specified that they should call back my cell phone (I was calling from the land line my landlords let me use, but it has no answering service and is therefore a terrible way to get in touch with me). I hung up and walked away, and exactly two minutes later the phone rang. Now, normally I don't answer my landlords' phone. No one I know has the number there, so the calls are never for me, and I don't like taking messages I'm not sure will be received. I did, however, have the sneaking suspicion that the person I'd just called had just hit "redial" on the phone. So I picked up.

Me: "Hello?"

Potential New Landlord: *in a very thick Chinese accent* "Yeah, you called me?"

[It should be noted that I am really, really picky about telephone manners. It immediately raises my hackles when people are impolite and can't follow proper telephone protocol.]

Me: *coldly and somewhat disingenuously* "I'm sorry, who is this?"

PNL: "I said, you called me?"

Me: *frigidly* "Ah, I see. You must be calling about the room for rent. I'm sorry, but I didn't catch your name."

PNL: "Yeah. Which one of the properties you want?"

Me: "I beg your pardon?"

PNL: "There's more than one address. Which one you want?"

Me: "Your ad didn't say anything about more than one address. You stated you had a room for $350, and I'm looking for something near Vanier Parkway."

PNL: "That one is basement room. You share a kitchen and there is no window."

Me: "There's no window at all?"

PNL: "No."

Me: "You realise that's not up to code, right?"

PNL: "What?"

Me: "The fire safety code. You can't have a bedroom without a window large enough to get through in the event of fire."

PNL: "There's no window in the room."

Me: "I'm sorry, I can't stay somewhere that's not up to code. Thank you anyway."

PNL: *hangs up*


I'm annoyed, but not as annoyed as if I'd wasted time going out there to see the place. I'm pretty sure I dodged a bullet there. Why must people be assholes? People looking for rooms to rent are not there to be used, jerkface. Anyway.

The second place I went to see was closer to work by about 15 km, and much closer to Montreal in terms of distance. It's not walking distance to work by any stretch, nor do I think I could bike it, but it's still a fair bit of time off my commute. It's an apartment in a fairly large set of condos set around a tranquil inner courtyard. The place itself is nice enough if a little small, but what would be "my" room is larger than the one I currently have, and the bed doesn't block the door, which is a definite plus.

Unfortunately, my potential new roommate/landlord gave off some seriously weird vibes. I don't know what it is about him, but my gut is screaming "WRONG!" at me, and I am reluctant to go against my instincts on this. I don't want to live alone with this middle-aged guy if he gives off the wrong vibes, you know? Lord knows what it might end up meaning. It would be different if he was just the landlord and didn't live there, but that's not the case.

So I'm back to hoping that some of the other prospects I'm hunting down will work out better.

At least thus far I have yet to encounter anything as bad as the guy I now fondly think of as "Bruce the Slumlord" from when I was apartment-hunting back in August. That was seriously gross.