After I signed the contract for my new job in the middle of July, I knew the next big thing was still ahead before leaving for the states on August 10th. I had to move! Since I was no longer working at the university, I was no longer provided with the free campus housing. I knew that I wanted to remain in the same neighborhood (also where my new school is located) and so the search began!
Renting an apartment in China is totally different from renting in America for one main reason...there is no apartment complex to go to because each apartment is individually owned. When apartment buildings go up in China, they are built structurally complete but with nothing finished on the interior. A newly married couple, for example, might want to buy an apartment to move into and so they buy it based on an empty room with no colors, no flooring, no kitchen utilities (cupboards, counter tops, etc) - nothing. Then they must decorate the apartment on their own, according to their own tastes. This includes choosing paints, light fixtures, flooring and everything else that you can think of that goes into a home to make it a home. This is similar to building your own home in America, right? So if you have an apartment building with 50 apartments, there are 50 different owners with totally different interior decor.
About two weeks before I had to move I went into a small rental agency (they're just randomly scattered around areas with a lot of apartment buildings). Immediately they got to work, trying to find an apartment within my pricing and location requests. About 20 minutes later, I was looking at my first apartment! That week I looked at about 9 apartments but eventually chose the second one that I looked at. Since each apartment is individually owned you have to look at not only the actual apartment and location but at the landlord/lady to make sure that you will be able to work with them if anything goes wrong.
In the next post I'm going to talk about the apartment that I chose but I want to tell you about some of the ones that I didn't choose!
* the one that had a 6-inch glass platform covering the entire living room floor...GLASS...and under that glass was a variety of rocks and other "sea" items. The landlady said that it was a compromise with her son because he had wanted LIVE fish under there (um...how do you get them out when they die?!?!?) The best part of this was when she flipped a light switch and bright orange lights started blinking under the glass. Gross.
* the one that didn't have live fish but sure smelled like fish...of the dead kind
* the one with the naaaaasty bathroom
* the one that was actually my second choice but I ended up passing on it because it was located in a hotel and i wasn't sure what kind of business my neighbors were up to!
I'm really happy with the apartment I ended up with - more stories about my apartment adventures and pictures to come!
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2 comments:
awesome shan! I'm glad you got hooked up with a good apt. Although, you could of had some sweet dance parties on top of that glass case in apt #2.
I'm curious now. That lighted floor thing sounds bizarre. where were you looking for apartments?
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