So it's coming down to crunch time on me having to find/choose an apartment to live in for my new job in New Jersey.

I figure I can spend $1500/mo on rent including all utilities.

Which wouldn't be too much of a problem except that I have two cats that are indoor/outdoor.

There's one 1BR apartment that has most everything including laundry facilities and is only 45 dollars over my monthly budget, except that it's a bunch of buildings on a very steeply terraced hill, and I'd have to keep all the blinds closed and never venture outside if I wanted to pretend I was someplace nice. But it's set far enough back from the rural but speedy road so it'd be safe for my cats.

There's a pretty 1BR apartment on a second floor that would run me 1280, large rooms, great kitchen, walking distance to a gym and grocery store and a bit of woods for the kitties to play in out back but no laundry and it's two lots away from a very busy intersection. And no way for the cats to get in and out without me physically doing it, and for those that know indoor/outdoor cats, this is an every-fifteen-minutes task (am I wrapped around their pretty little paws? Yes. I bottle fed them, we bonded, shut up.)

Then there's a very affordable little studio on a second floor and tiny backyard and it's set about five lots away from the busy street in a quietish neighborhood. Same problem with having to let the cats out manually and there's a seven year old downstairs with parents that buy her too much crap and it's strewn all over that tiny lawn, and the entrance is shared with their kitchen door and I don't see how I'd get a bed up their, let alone a fridge or any other furniture, and even though there's the yard, it wouldn't be *my* yard and (sorry to parents around the world) I don't particularly care for kids.

And lastly I found (seriously, this was the last one I found and looked at) a small cottage with A PORCH! and fully furnished (stinky 40's/50's gramma style, but, hey.) in a very very very quiet neighborhood with a little yard all my own and a gorgeous commute to work. Safe for kitties, nutritious for my soul, very near to the Watchung Preserve and also very near the country road that would get me to work, with a view of Manhattan along the way, and 20 minutes max. The only downside is no laundry at all and I really would want to purge a lot of that furniture since it's cluttering up what space there is, and apparently the attached garage is for the landlords use and otherwise I have no storage for my camping gear and seasonal clothes/whatnot. And unless the realtor can knock down the price another couple hundred bucks, it is bit outside my budget.

I'm biting my nails and banging my head and wondering if I should keep looking and see what else pops up. Realtors suck and people who don't take cats suck.

Do I take the teeny tiny little studio that will make having visiting friends and family a cramped and unpleasant affair but otherwise be kind to my budget, or take the little cottage that may be a tad outside my budget but having the three season porch and an actual living room will make being a host more pleasant, and a yard that I can call my own.

Basically, one I see as a one-year-lease landing pad until I find something better, and the other is basically a ready-made home that I can forsee staying in and actually calling "home" and being happy in. One is under my budget, one is over (by eighty bucks, but still, that's 80 a month I have to squeeze out of an already squeezed budget).

Also, who knew shopping for an apartment would be so tiring? 4:30 rolled around the past three days and my brain stopped functioning and I actually had to take naps. Heading back today I had a hard time driving because my eyes wouldn't stop watering.

edited because I wasn't so upset about "no laundry" that it needed to be mentioned twice and because I make no sense.

I say take the little cottage! It sounds like a place you'll be truly happy, and you'll recoup the extra costs by not having to move again in a year.

(And man oh man am I jealous of those rent prices. I need to repeat "I love living in Southern California" again a few times, now...)

you'll recoup the extra costs by not having to move again in a year.

I like the way you think! And also: so true!

I'm moving from New Hampshire, so everything down here is a huge sticker shock.

I'm already thinking of what kind of flowers I could plant around the sunny south-facing backard, and trying to get permission to attack the invasive brambles along the road and planting a pretty perennial bed with privacy hedging (because I won't get enough of gardening at work, oh no sirree).

At the little studio I'm imagining how to get the parents to invest in a storage shed for their rusty yard tools, ten trash cans and toy, um, collection.

(Should 7-year-olds still own toy baby-carriages?)

The rent thing in other cities flips me out, becaue I make 1800 a month! But I pay 485 for aspacious one bedroom with attic. I hope if I lived in a more expensive place I would make more money doing the same job.

But I pay 485 for aspacious one bedroom with attic.

I'm paying 1150 for a studio. A fairly large studio with full kitchen, but still a studio.

We pay (only because Hec has been here 20 years) 932 for a 2-bedroom. If we moved out, the landlady could easily double it.

Our neighborhood is slightly insane, I've concluded. About nine months ago, a rundown but structurally gorgeous Victorian on its own lot behind a big fence (similar to Deb G's house, for those who've been there, but a single 2-story dwelling instead of split into 2 flats) went for 1.5 million. In the past 3 months, three different flats--not houses, flats--went for 1.5 million each.

Meanwhile, one of the Google sponsored ads that keeps popping up in my gmail account is announcing a 4-BR 3BA house in Noe Valley (a cleaner, quieter, sunnier neighborhood with exponentially fewer scary aggressive drunks and homeless elderhippies) for 1.1 million. Which is still ridiculous, but I cannot for the life of me imagine why we'd be almost half a million more for half as much house.

Places like Jersey City, Newark, Elizabeth, there's 1 BR's for 550 including most utilities, but I am not a 'burbs/urban girl, and roomies for as low as 400/month, but man, get a whiff of "countryside" down here and the prices double!

Another odd note is that landlords in the more urban settings are more likely to accept pets than those on the edge of horse country.

Well, I am living in the city with the highest murder rate inupstate NY!

Another quirk that I ran across in apartment hunting is the mystery of how landlords/ladies determine how much to bill you for oil/gas/heat/water/hot water/electricity when there's only one meter and one thermostat and one source for any of that. Is there a separate bill that the electric/oil/water company sends, or does the owner arbitrarily decide what your percentage was and give you a separate bill from themselves? And how can you be sure they're not stiffing you.

*stocks up on candles and sweaters and fanboys (the boys with fans, for the summer)*

Or the floor of the subway?

I noticed when I visited friends in NYC that they don't even touch the rails walking down into the subway stations.