One visit down...

I went to see the first (and only) place that sent me a response, and it was... not exactly ideal. For one, the placement wasn't great: it was a row townhouse with what seemed like fairly thin walls, so to live there you'd have to pray for considerate neighbours. More ominously, there was a HUGE apartment complex right on the other side of the back yard. The kind of apartment complex that screams "constant visits by the police at 3am for noise complaints and domestic disputes." So I knew pretty much going in that I probably wasn't going to take it. The access to the place was rather restricted: very narrow walkway lined with a couple of trees, which was an additional mark against it. I am not a huge fan of getting a place that's hard to move into.

The house itself was in need of a lot of repair: all the floors were damaged to varying degrees (with parts of it pried up and missing in almost every room, not to mention serious wear and tear otherwise), all the stair railings were coming out of their moorings, all the light switches were broken, and the bottom of the stove was missing. Oh, and the living room ceiling fixture was dangling near the floor by its wiring (it was super ugly, too). On top of that the front walk (and tiny driveway) hadn't been cleared of snow, so I had to wade through up to my knees when the guy finally came to open the door. He spent about half the time apologizing for the state of the place (the garage was filled with junk), and the other half reassuring me that the rent was "negotiable."

In general, he was absolutely useless.

"I don't know what repairs they're going to do, I just show the place," he told me, which did nothing to reassure me. I mean, why show a place if you can't answer even the most basic questions about it? He had no information: no idea how much heat/hydro cost, nothing.

Once the visit was over, the property manager (not the guy showing the place) spammed me with text messages for half the afternoon trying to get me to agree to rent the place until I finally shut him down. I guess they're really desperate to get the place rented out: I've never been pursued so aggressively by any landlord in my life, or by any landlord, for that matter.

I spent the morning in a meeting at work, and the rest of the afternoon after the house visit making various calls, none of which panned out. I'm trying to get hold of the cleaning service my paralegal recommended, but the number she gave me was the lady's residence. I spoke to a guy there who was either being very passive-aggressive with me, or else was maybe on the spectrum and took me a little too literally.

Guy: "Hello?"
Me: "Hello, may I speak with Linda?"
Guy: "She's at work."
Me: *realising I have her residential number instead of her work number* "I see. Is there a better number at which I can reach her?"
Guy: "Yeah."
Me: ...
Guy: ...
Me: ...
Guy: ...
Me: "Can you provide me with the number, please?"
Guy: "Yeah, it's [number]."
Me: *jots down number* "Thank you."

So, yeah, I'm not sure what that was about, but at least I got the other number, and ended up having to leave a message.

I then cast about a little blindly trying to find someone who can come in and do an independent evaluation of the condition of the house. I tried the Landlord Tenant Board on the off-chance they'd be able to give me a starting point. I spoke to a very nice lady named Daphne, and we bonded over having the same name, which was fun. Unfortunately she wasn't able to help me (it's not really within their purview). My paralegal said she'd be able to get me the name of a flooring company, at least, but in an email today she told me she couldn't find the information and would have to get back to me about it.

I also sent in an application to the housing co-op that I mentioned yesterday. I had to fill in ten pages' worth of information, and since I was using my dinky little home scanner it took forever to do, but at least I got it sent. I rather hope it works out, that they accept my application *and* that I like the place. I'd really like for that to happen. Fingers crossed, I guess!

Critical Role is tonight, but I will have to watch it tomorrow or maybe even Saturday, since it's a work night and I need to go to bed early.