Thank you all for the encouragement.

I'm glad Harvey is feeling better.

I'm looking at Cincinnati apartments. I still don't have the official offer letter from the university, which is making me a bit nervous, but the person that I've been talking to in the math department there said that I should have it "soon." I hope that "soon" means within the next few days, because my plan is to drive out to Cincinnati on Wednesday and then look at apartments on Thursday and Friday, and I can't sign a lease until I have the official offer. And many thanks to both flea and Steph for answering all the "Is this an OK place to live?" questions I've had, since I don't really know the neighborhoods at all.

And many thanks to both flea and Steph for answering all the "Is this an OK place to live?" questions I've had, since I don't really know the neighborhoods at all.

The thing with UC is that there is a VAST geographical range you could live if you're okay with a 20-minute commute. But closer in, I think you'd be happiest in Oakley (lots of development going on there, lots of shops, right near the highway), Hyde Park (next neighborhood over from Oakley, more upscale), or Clifton Gaslight (which is going to put you closest to campus). I've lived in all of them, and really loved living in all of them. Definitely safe. Not, you know, gated-community safe, but in all the years I lived in those 3 neighborhoods (probably a total of 11 years between the 3), I never felt unsafe.

Neighborhoods that I've lived in, but can be dodgy depending on the part you live in: Pleasant Ridge (loved it, but some parts are SUPER nice and other parts are SUPER sketchy [I lived on a sketchy as hell street, but it was okay]), East Walnut Hills (again, some parts are nice but some are sketchy as hell), and, as much as it pains me to say it, my beloved Northside. I don't feel unsafe in Northside. My street, the general area of Northside we live in, does not feel unsafe to me. I know my neighbors and feel 100% fine walking by myself. That said, the east side of Hamilton Ave. does see more drug-related violence, which pains me.

And the house you looked at on my street is the white one, not the yellow one (I walked up to check the actual address, since I couldn't see it on Google Street View). Looks like a nice little house, and the neighbors down that way are very nice folks. The people on my end are nice, too. Our street rocks.

(I'm happy to delete actual neighborhood names if you like, if that's too much information to have out there.)

The thing with UC is that there is a VAST geographical range you could live if you're okay with a 20-minute commute. But closer in, I think you'd be happiest in Oakley (lots of development going on there, lots of shops, right near the highway), Hyde Park (next neighborhood over from Oakley, more upscale), or Clifton Gaslight (which is going to put you closest to campus). I've lived in all of them, and really loved living in all of them. Definitely safe. Not, you know, gated-community safe, but in all the years I lived in those 3 neighborhoods (probably a total of 11 years between the 3), I never felt unsafe.

Those are the three where I've pretty much been looking. I also know that my standards for what feels safe are a bit higher than other people's, and I'm willing to pay a bit more in rent in order to be somewhere where I'm comfortable.

I also know that my standards for what feels safe are a bit higher than other people's, and I'm willing to pay a bit more in rent in order to be somewhere where I'm comfortable.

I'd lean Hyde Park and Oakley, then, in that order. (Though, honestly, at this point the 2 neighborhoods -- and, again, they are right next to each other and sometimes I'm not even sure where one starts and the other ends -- are really similar in terms of demographics.)

The major issue I'm running into is stairs. Most of the apartments available are in older buildings that don't have elevators, and there were a couple of buildings where even a first-floor apartment was out of the question, because there's an enormous flight of stairs to get to the building from the street. I'm going to be calling around to some of the property management places tomorrow -- even though they list contact emails on their websites, almost none of them have actually responded to the emails I sent.

Most of the apartments available are in older buildings that don't have elevators

The apartment I lived in when I lived in Clifton (named Clifton Colony) has one building out of the whole complex that has an elevator -- I lived in that building. Granted that it's been 7 years since I lived there, but it was a nice place. Not swanky, but nice. So if you end up going with Clifton, you might want to call Clifton Colony and ask about the building with the elevator.

Every other place I lived was either a house or a 4-unit building with no elevator.

When are you aiming to move?

When are you aiming to move?

Sometime in July. My lease here goes until the end of July, but if I can move earlier, than I'd like to, so that I can get settled in and stuff before the school year starts.

Looking at reviews of Clifton Colony online, it seems like it was getting decent reviews until about the summer of 2013. Pretty much every review posted after that is terrible. I'm guessing new management.

Aww, dang. It was really good to me for close to 7 years. It was the longest I'd ever lived anywhere post-college, until now. (I think I just recently passed the 7-year mark in Tim's house...excuse me, OUR house.) That's too bad.