Upgrade! New Flat

I got back from Italy Sunday evening (the week before last) and started straight back to work on Monday with a 40 hour work week. I was pretty tired that whole week and then I moved to a new apartment that next weekend which is my excuse as to why my last couple of posts are so late. Regardless, here I am to share my new flat with you as well as how I found it as a sort of mini “how-to” guide.

OMG Finally

If you haven’t been reading my blog consistently then you may be asking yourself, “why is she moving? What was wrong with her old apartment?”

Well, to give as least rant-y of an answer as possibly, it sucked. When I moved in there were piles of garbage laying around the kitchen and hallway, nothing had been cleaned in forever and the overall condition of the flat was much worse than we had been led to believe. To make matters worse, we had a stove that kept tripping the breaker rendering us powerless for hours on end some days. Shortly into my stay, the door to our (ridiculously tiny) refrigerator broke and it took entirely took long for maintenance to replace it.

Even after these things got resolved, the apartment was always filthy despite external cleaning ladies coming weekly. Overall, my five other roommates and I were not impressed and most have found new accommodations for the coming semester. At the same time we were all dreading moving on after hearing over and over again how hard it is to find a place in Frankfurt.

The Hunt

I don’t even remember at this point if I talked about the first apartment I looked at way back at the beginning of the school year. It was a super tiny attic apartment that was well maintained and in a great part of town. It was honestly pretty perfect for anyone like myself who wants something clean, functional, small and most of all, cheep. For those reasons, only about a million people were at the showing and the competition was tough for the application. Because I didn’t have a letter of recommendation from a German landlord, I was basically overlooked in favor for someone with a positive and “provable” track record.

After that, I just couldn’t find anything in my price range so I settled for the nasty dorm for the rest of the semester. My contract ends at the end of February so I started looking for my new place at the end of November. Not may places were advertising that far in advance but that also meant that I had less competition. I found my current flat on a Facebook group although they did also advertise on wg gesucht if I remember correctly. Aside from these two resources, there is also immobilien scout and some people even get so desperate as to rent from air bob long term.

A wg stands for Wohngemeinschaften and basically means you will be sharing a flat with other random and often ever-changing people. It’s not ideal for people like me who are a bit OCD and use their room as a sort of escape from the world but it’s often the cheapest option available.

I messaged with the girl on Facebook who was advertising the room and learned that she was just subletting it for the semester. My train of thought at this point is that I will likely be taking an internship in in the states over the summer and would likely be unable to afford to rent two apartments over the summer anyways. In some ways, the shortness of this contract is a bonus. We’ll see in 6(ish) months if I made the right decision.

We met after school one evening and she showed me around the flat and her room. I met my future roommates (although one of them ended up moving last minute so I really only met one roommates) and basically decided whether or not I wanted to put in for the room. A couple of days later they informed me that I was chosen and all that was left was to wait until move-in day in February.

All Moved In

I rented the room fully furnished from the girl which benefited both parties. She didn’t have to find a place to keep her stuff for a semester and I didn’t have to purchase anything expensive that I’d likely have to get rid of in a year anyways. Except for the hassle of moving using sporadic bus service, the transition was pretty smooth.

The flat is pretty far off the beaten path so it’s really great that the girl also left me her bike to use. Aside from that, the building is a bit older so it either runs a bit cold or very humid from the water-based radiator. I was more than willing to make these sacrifices for the excellent price I’m paying. Also, to be a bit of an optimist, having to bike everywhere is a good way to counteract my new completely static desk job.

Now that I have lived here for a week, I can safely say that, although it’s not perfect, I am much, much happier here than in the dorms. Everything is much cleaner, quieter, and roughly equal in convenience level. After reviewing my schedule for next semester, I’m not sure just how much time I will get to spend relaxing at home but for now everything is great.

So yea, that what really only a couple of days from the week but the rest was just work, work and more work so I thought I’d focus on the exciting bit of news. If you have any questions about apartment hunting or any of the various paperwork that I didn’t cover in my post, just let me know!

PS: I tried the Swedish meatballs at Ikea and I think that the ones I make are better. Sorry Ikea. haha.