For the last year and a half I’ve lived on my college’s campus housing. Dorm living’s only perk was its convenience. Being able to leave 5 minutes before class or work, and still get there on time has been great! But it has also had it’s definite downsides.
• Not (technically) being able to come home and have a beer after a long day at work.
• Waiting hours to do laundry because jerks leave their nasty clothes in the washer and forget about them.
• Trying to date and having to timidly tell men that I still live in a college dorm.
• The God damned twin size beds.
But above all else, I’ve just been craving more space. I want a house; I want a home.
I’ve searched for apartments in the past and, coming from a small town, it was never that difficult. But searching for a four bedroom home, in a decent area of town, with enough space for all of us, fit for a college budget has proved next to impossible. It seems like every house that gets my hopes up, inevitability lets me down.
Me: “Guys! I found a great place! It’s HUGE! Has 3 full baths, 4 big bedrooms, wood floors, and a back yard! And it’s under $1,200 a month!”
Everyone: “Oh….but that’s in an awful neighborhood….it’s actually really dangerous.”
Hmmm, I guess there was a shooting there just last month.
Me: “What about this one! It’s decently sized, has a really cute porch, is in our budget and has a big garage!”
Everyone: “That’s sooo far away from the center of town. It’ll take like, 40 minutes to get anywhere.”
Yeah but it’s a safe neighborhood, all the snobby people live out there.
It’s been insanely frustrating. I’ve checked places like Zillow, Homes.com, and even the dreaded Craigslist for houses and seem to just keep coming up with the same dozen places that all look hopeful, but then have some glaring issue.
Then I came across Trulia. It was an organized website, and seemed really straight forward. After only about 20 minutes of looking, I found what seemed like the perfect home. It was huge (3,050 sqft), four bedrooms, four baths. It was in a great neighborhood in a really convenient location! The outside was beautiful, the interior looked spotless. Best of all it was in our price range! $1,200 split between 4 girls was unbelievably reasonable! I was ready to look at it immediately. So I put down my name and email under their “Send me more information!” tab. I received an email almost immediately confirming that I had requested further information and went to bed very excited at this possibility.
Flash forward to this morning at around 11:30am. I’m giddily messaging a friend of mine telling her all about this place! I send her the link (which had been working only minutes before) only to be met with an illustration of a home with a frowny face plastered on it and the message “Sorry! We couldn’t find that property.”
I deflated instantly and quickly reset the search criteria on Truila in hopes that there was some mistake. It seems as though the mistake was mine, in getting my hopes up for a place once again.
I’ve been in contact with Triula via Twitter this morning, and they’ve been very kind and helpful. I assumed they would ignore my original tweets, so to have them actually reply and look into the situation was great. I have much more respect for a website with an attentive social networking team.
So, the hunt for a home, and the count down until move out day (74 days) continues!
Kristina Does... 