I am not a personal expert, but my parents had major wifi issues and swear by their Mesh WiFi network. They went with the Google WiFi system (now called Nest WiFi I believe, and the three little mini hotspots all act as little Google homes too, which is cool if you like the whole smart assistant thing). There are competing ones that get really good reviews, including Eero, if you are uncomfortable with Google. [link]

A mesh network can really help. We have the Orbi system at our house the the three repeaters fully cover our entire 10,000SF property.

Alternately you can do the low tech method and just drop a long ethernet cable down the middle of the apartment have some folks plug in the old fashioned way.

Thanks! I'm going to check online for the best option among these—we're definitely far short of 10k square feet, so we probably don't need a mesh network.

JZ, I think you'll be fine with one extender, which is why I wanted to know the model of your existing router.

javachik, Netgear N300 (I was out until just a little while ago and only just got a look at it).

I have one network extender and it allows my Xfinity router to cover my whole house. The one Vonnie linked to should solve your problem.

There is a two node Orbi that would probably be excellent for you place.

We're starting out with the one Vonnie recommended, because... well, it's in our budget. It arrives on Thursday, and we'll see if that does the trick or if we need to scale up.

It's really not a large place at all; it's just long and narrow and all the outlets are weirdly placed.

Thank you so much!

We're starting out with the one Vonnie recommended, because... well, it's in our budget.

Same. If the cheap one doesn't work I'll probably get an eero but my house really isn't that big and it's just this one corner (where the desk is, of course) where the wifi doesn't always reach.

ARGH. It arrived today and I think it could work (the signal is nice and strong even in the front bedroom), except that it seems to think it's an extension of our old network, not the new one.

The old one still shows up as a phantom network periodically in our list of available wifi networks, even though the router it was tied to is long since dead, the new one has a new name and new password, and all the devices that ever connected to that old network are long gone. The new extender is persistently telling me it's called "[Oldname]-EXT" and it fiercely repudiates the password for the new network.

Of course neither Hec nor I has any idea what that old password was, how to exorcise that phantom or how to convince the extender (just a box with antennae) that it's actually extending the new network, not the phantom.

eta: HOLY MOTHERFORKING SHIRTBALLS IT WORKS NOW! I went online, registered the extender, declared my sole ownership of it, and BOOM, it coughed up the ancient password. It still thinks it's connecting to the phantom network and not the actual one, but I don't care. It can think whatever it wants as long as it works. I'm typing this from my bed AIFG.

Thank you, Buffistas all, and thank you, Vonnie!