Checking Out a "New" Apartment Complex

Choosing a new apartment complex is always a big decision.  The quality of your apartment is a big determiner of the quality of your life during the lease term.  It's also expensive to move from one apartment complex to another.  When finding a new apartment, it pays to choose well.  Here are some tricks that we use to thoroughly check out an apartment complex before we move:

Apartment Life:  How to Check Out a New Complex Before You Sign a Lease

Stopping Smokers Outside Your Apartment

Is the atmosphere of your apartment being ruined by a smoker lurking outside your door?  We had the problem.  We wondered why the air was so stale in our apartment.  As it turns out we had a pesky smoker hanging out in our breezeway smoking like a chimney and leaning up against our apartments exterior wall.  The smoke was coming right in!  Nauseating!  But, we got a solution:  Vaseline, Spit, and Confrontation.  A little dab on the wall where a smoker might lean.  A little dab on the railing where he might run his hand.  We asked him to move and then made the environment outside our door uninviting.  It worked.

By Med Chaos (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Look Ma No Leaks! - Conquering Dripping Faucets

Hip. Hip. Hooray!  Hip.  Hip. Hooray!  After 7 separate maintenance requests, we no longer have any dripping faucets in our master bathroom.  Other maintenance requests tackled a running toilet and other leaks.  It should save us about $10 to $15 per month on our water bill!

Maintenance Requests You Should Submit Today!

An apartment with leaks, drips, and other problems could be wasting water, energy, and your hard-earned cash.  If you want to save yourself some serious money and aggravation, here are some maintenance requests that you should submit today:

Apartment Life:  Maintenance Requests to Submit Today

Apartment Perks: Professional Landscaping

One major advantage of apartment life:  professional landscaping!  It's so cool to enjoy park-like common areas without having to maintain them ourselves!

We never take the beauty of your complex for granted.  We don't litter and leave a bunch of trash around for our groundskeepers to find.  That's just plain rude!

Rug Rats and Apartments

Oh what a feeling, it's rug rats dancing above our ceiling!   There's nothing worse than having a family with young kids living above you.  In one complex, grandma and grandpa lived above us, repeatedly had the grand kids over, and encouraged them to put on dance recitals.  The chandeliers and ceiling fans were rocking. It was pretty much like living in London during the Blitz!  When we finally had a face to face meeting with the grand parents and the rental office staff, the little old people had the audacity to lie and deny that they even had grandchildren visit.  It was shocking.  Grandma and Grandpa aren't supposed to lie!  But, if you get angry enough, old folks will tone their behavior down out of fear alone.

There's a better way to have kids exercise around an apartment complex.  Here are some tips for living with kids in an apartment:  Eight Tips for Living with Kids in an Apartment.

Not our chandalier!  Photo By Andreas Praefcke (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons