I checked out 8 places in chicago in 36 hours. Not bad. One in lakeview. 2 in andersonville. 1 up by howard. 1 in wicker park. And 3 apartments very close to the morse stop in rogers park. Lakeview dude struck me as a stoner, and the apartment was poorly maintained. Not bad. The first roger’s park person was a self-described fag hag. I started getting guilt twinges just from hanging with her and chatting briefly, and the place was a bit iffy. Wicker park had no laundry in the unit. Also, my potential roommate was waaay too cute. In his presence, I was starting to overlook fatal flaws. It would have had the shortest commute, but just, no. I happened across a place to check out in andersonville on my way to lunch on day 2. It wasn’t bad. Extraordinarily cheap. Nice roommate, though totally run down place. I quickly nixed that one. The last “no” was another cute gay guy, this time in rogers park. He wanted a bit too much separation, and his place was pretty expensive. Very nice, decent commute, but not very homy. <\/p>\n
Now on to the maybes.<\/p>\n
Howard guy had his own condo. A long commute, (I’d estimate 45 min each way minimum) and the farthest from boystown and other fun neighborhoods. The most expensive one I’m considering ($600 + 1\/3 utils). But he’s a great guy. And the gym (Bally’s, also a nationwide chain, $4\/month to have access to all) would be between the train station and home, eliminating all excuses for not working out. Grocery store right next to that. He listed a PS2 as an amenity of the apartment. Laundry in the place. He seems totally affable and easy to get along with. Also a homo from SF. <\/p>\n
Next place. A 3 BR in Andersonville with two women. One ex-SF-er who will be moving out in January. One Polish lady. $500 a month, including everything: laundry, internet, electricity, heat, you name it (imagine how quickly I could pay off my credit cards…). Polish lady smokes on the front porch, not a problem. An easy walk to see Last place. Two straight guys. Friendly, mellow. $500, utils not included. Not really close to anything. I just liked the social vibe of the place. (ouch, okay, this one just moved to the bottom of my maybe list). <\/p>\n So, fundamentally, it’s a choice between low rent, and long walks for groceries and gym (~10 min to the gym ~15 to the grocery store, maybe less) Or, over $100\/month more for a handy gym and grocery store (and a slightly longer commute). I did feel a bit cozier with the Howard guy, on a personal basis, but the location, especially at that price is too hard to beat. Plus, if the roommates don’t work out, I’ll have a hand in selecting a new one soon. Okay, decision made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I checked out 8 places in chicago in 36 hours. Not bad. One in lakeview. 2 in andersonville. 1 up by howard. 1 in wicker park. And 3 apartments very close to the morse stop in rogers park. Lakeview dude struck me as a stoner, and the apartment was poorly maintained. Not bad. The first … Continue reading “House hunting dilemma”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}