We Moved!!! about 100 feet

Last weekend we moved to a different apartment in our same complex. We moved from apartment 6203 to apartment 3206 =). It’s a pretty cool story (in my opinion) so I thought I would share it. Sorry to some of you who have heard me bragging already, you can skip this one. We had given our notice to leave out current place and we were looking around at other places. We were paying $915 a month and wanted to find something a little bit cheaper hopefully close to $800. We really liked our complex and apartment and didn’t want to go but we thought it would be best to save a little money. When we were looking online for places Emily found a deal advertised for our complex. So after our first Saturday of looking at new places (which I hated) we went back in and asked them about it.

We were in a "deluxe" apartment. It had brown and sage paint, thicker carpet, crown molding, and a bit nicer fixtures. The deal was for the standard apartments that were more basic but still really nice, and the exact same floor plan and square footage. So they looked at their sheet of pricing and found they could get us into one for $685 a month! We signed on the spot. Same size, still really nice, just white walls, short carpet and more basic fixtures (appliances are pretty much the same). And are saving $230 a month. Plus before we were paying $35 a month for a washer and dryer (so $950 for rent a month) and we decided we are just going to buy a cheap set off of Craig’s list, so it is really $265 a month less on rent. We were pretty excited and really felt blessed. The story even gets a bit cooler though.

The apartment was in the building right next to ours and I was curious what the current occupants were like. I am allergic to cats and cigarette smoke so those were two things I was really concerned about. So we walked by the apartment a few times to try to stake it out. It is on a second floor so we could only see the porch and slightly into the living room. They had a few bikes, a car storage unit, and a kayak on the porch. They were neat and well organized which I thought was good. Also the bike had a child carrier which could be a good sign, or a bad one. We have a lot of single college age kids at our place, and we all know what they can do to apartments. But at the same time young kids can do quite a bit of damage themselves. So I was feeling good about it but still not sure.

We were walking by one evening and after we passed the apartment I heard a young voice say “Hiii.” I looked back and saw a naked little girl around 2 years old on the porch. In a matter of about 3 seconds I had the following thought process. Hum, it probably isn’t good for a grown man to spark up a conversation with a little naked kid. But, the parents are almost sure to come out if the kid is there and I can get a look at them, plus the kid is up on a balcony and Emily is just 10 feet past me. Curiosity won out, so I turned around and said “Hi”. Right after that a flustered and embarrassed mom came running out onto the porch. She grabbed the girl in a towel, said a quick “sorry” and then went quickly back into the apartment. But in the few seconds she was on the porch I realized I recognized her.

She went to church with us. They had only been in our ward a few months and though we had sat by them once at church we hadn’t realized they lived in our complex until about a week earlier and we didn’t know where in the complex they lived. So I stopped Emily and told her that I thought the person who lived there was the family from our ward. I didn’t even know her name and wasn’t positive it was her but I was about 80% sure so we decided to go check it out. So we went up and knocked on the door. I think I should have had Emily stand more in view because when she first opened the door she didn’t recognize me and I could see the “why is the guy who was just talking to my naked kid now at my door” look on her face. But I told her that I thought they went to church with us and then she saw Emily who she had talked to before and everything was cool. We talked for a bit and found out they were moving out because her husband was done with school and they were probably moving back to Utah. It was such a strange coincidence. We had a bunch of groceries so we didn’t go in but as I looked in the apartment was spotless. So a clean apartment, no pets or smoking, and a cool family we knew. I felt pretty good about everything.

One of the crazy things is that they where on a shorter 4 month lease and I think they were paying around $980 (with washer/dryer). The pricing really depends on the amount of units and which models they have open. We just got really lucky with timing. We are in our new place and things are good. The main problem we have now is that our new place is a mirror image of the old one. So that is pretty weird, but we are getting adjusted, and ready to start paying off some more debt =). That’s our cool story, hope you enjoyed it.