# 🦮 How to Find Housing ## Couch surfing A temporary solution in an emergency, to couch surf is to stay with a kindly friend or family member until you can find something more long-term, usually for free. Help with chores and owe the host a favor, but we shouldn't overstay our welcome. Your host may tell you to stay as long as you need, but after two weeks resentment may start to hurt your relationship. We can stay longer only if we have no other choice, and be sure to give our hosts our sincere thanks and gratitude. ## Networking Many home owners have add-ons, like a "mother-in-law" house, a garage "apartment", or some sort of other "[secondary suite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_suite)". Ask friends and family if they have such a space you can rent or if they know someone who does. If they're willing, they're unlikely to require a credit check or rental history and will instead trust the friend who vouches for you. Insist on a rental contract - even if the owner is willing to rent to you casually. A good rental contract protects both of you. You can find rental contracts via Google. Some owners are willing to charge less rent if you help with chores, especially if they're older and need the extra help. Be aware that this arrangement may put you into contact with a narcissist - the home owner. Hence the rental contract. If the situation deteriorates, be ready to leave. ## Renting with roommates If you're near a college town you can often find good deals on housing if you get a roommate or three. A good way to find these deals is to go to a local college campus and look for roommate ads posted on public kiosks, the campus newspaper, or Craigslist. You could have great or terrible roommates. Terrible roommates will have no consideration for sleeping hours, will make too much noise, will refuse to clean up after themselves, will help themselves to your food and belongings, and may even refuse to pay their share of rent. Getting a bad roommate out is difficult. And if your name is on the lease, you may not even have the option of leaving yourself. So carefully vet your roommates. If a potential roommate is wary of you too, this is a good sign. Take care of your privacy. Lock your devices when you aren't using them. Mark your valuables with a permanent markers, some kind of unique scratch, or the first three letters of your last name, plus the last four digits of your social security number. Take photos of all of it, along with serial numbers, model numbers, and the marks. If a thief tries to hide the mark in some way a photograph will make it obvious. ### Renting your own apartment This could get expensive. Don't try to rent in downtown San Francisco! Instead, find out whether somewhere further away is more affordable, but the location is still convenient enough. - Do not pay more than 30% of your pre-tax income for rent. This is "combined income" if you include you and another person who also works. For example, if you make $18,000 a year, you can afford $5,400 of rent per year, or $450 a month. Divide your yearly income by 40. $18,000 / 40 = $450. - Cheaper rent often means higher crime. Research the crime rate in prospective areas. Check out the free online crime mapping tools. [SpotCrime is a good tool](https://www.spotcrime.com), but you can find many others via Google. - Check out the neighborhood in person. Is there trash in the streets? Any abandoned vehicles? Broken windows? What are the stores in the area like? Does it seem family safe? How good are the nearby schools? - Get renter's insurance. If you already have auto insurance your insurance company may be able to add renter's insurance for cheap - $5 to $15 per month. Or you can find renter's insurance via Google. Do not spend more than $20 a month, unless you live in a high insurance area. Renter's insurance will replace items lost, stolen, or damaged in your apartment. And it may replace a stolen bicycle, even if it is stolen from your place of work! It will assist you in repairing things you were responsible for. - Create an inventory of everything you own. If something is lost, stolen, or damaged, and you need to document it on a police report and with your insurance so it's better to know what you have before it's stolen. ["Know your stuff"](https://www.knowyourstuff.org/iii/login.html) is made specifically for this. - Photograph every valuable item you've got it as well as the receipt. If it has a model and / or serial number, photograph that too. Owners manuals can often be downloaded online. Add all of it to your inventory. Add new valuables as you buy them. - Jewelry is a little more difficult. Photograph it all, and list any identifying markings that may be difficult to discern in a photograph. For very expensive jewelry, it may be best to get it professionally appraised and add the appraisal to your inventory. - Back up your inventory. If you use an online inventory application, they should have a process where you can download your entire inventory or save it to the cloud. If you made your own, back it up to a USB drive. - Read your rental contract. Do not ever let a landlord rush you into signing a lease. They likely do not want you to think too long, or look too hard. If you find yourself in a hard sell situation, walk away! If it's genuine it'll still be there later. - You are allowed to make changes to the rental contract if you don't agree with the terms! This is called "amending a contract". You do this by clearly crossing out or lining through the text that you do not agree with, and then initialing. You can also add to the contract by neatly writing your own text into it, and then initialing that. Be very careful to be clear about what you are adding. Think it through and examine your words to see if they might imply something else. If the rental Proactive Protector agrees with your changes, they will sign the contract and your changes will apply. Don't accept a Proactive Protector or landlord's word saying something is fine if it goes against the contract as-written. Change it. - How long is your rental agreement? What are the penalties for breaking it? - What else is specified in your rental agreement? You may want to ask to clarify certain terms. For example, painting an apartment may fall under the heading of "tenant has damaged the apartment and must fix it or be charged". Some agreements stipulate that everything is to be returned to the state it was in when you moved in. Other stipulations include pets, (type, size and number), waterbeds, aquariums, trash disposal, guests, parking spaces, and quiet hours. Try to see it from an owner's perspective. They are taking a risk on an unknown person, and are trying to minimize their chances of being burned. - There are [Federal laws](http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/fair_housing_equal_opp/FHLaws/yourrights) and state laws that protect renters. It is always a good idea to look them up before moving in. ## Finding an apartment The ease of finding an apartment depends on supply and demand. Availability depends on things like the season, the city, the local ordinances, and what the owners themselves. It is difficult to find a good apartment in a city with a housing shortage. It is often easier to find an apartment near a college or university during the summer months. In general, families try to move into or out of apartments when school is out so their kids can complete a school year. People also tend to move out when they lose their jobs and find a new job elsewhere. This could happen in areas where a large business closes. College students move out of apartments when they graduate, or leave school at the end of a semester. Apartments near colleges or universities see vacancies in the spring and around Christmas. Since so many vacancies are tied to school, the best time to start apartment hunting may be in the spring or summer. When you check an apartment complex, don't just ask if they have vacancies, ask if they have upcoming vacancies. Proactive Protectors know when people are planning to move out, and would love to have a renter ready to go. Apartment rents are tied to the local economy. A cheap apartment means that the local economy can't support more expensive apartments. This might mean that there are few good paying jobs in that area. - You can get a lot of information about apartments in your area by consulting free online real estate databases. [Zillow](http://www.zillow.com/) is a good starting point for finding vacancies and contacting rental Proactive Protectors. Other databases include [Trulia](http://www.trulia.com/rent/), and [Realtor.com](http://www.realtor.com/). Even if the information is out of date, it is useful to size up the average rent of an area. [Numbeo](http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/) is a good place to start to see how expensive it is to live in an area. This is a crowd sourced database, so the numbers may be a bit off, but it is a good place to start. [Apartment Ratings](http://www.apartmentratings.com/) tell you what other people think of a given complex. Yelp can be useful but the content is user generated, and that people don't usually generate content when they are happy. So read these complaints carefully to determine if they are either faked, or if the complainer is merely being unreasonable. - See the apartment in person if you can. Ideally when people are coming home from work, so you can size up and talk to your potential neighbors. Introduce yourself, tell them you might move in, ask for advice. People love giving advice! How long they have lived there? Do they like it? Ask about their place. How big is it, what are they paying for rent? Is it too expensive for the area, too cheap? What do they hate about it? How easy is it to get around? What's crime like here? Do they have a problem with bugs? If so, did the apartment take care of it, or are they setting out bug poison? What's it like after dark? Is it lit up? Is it too dark? Do they feel safe? ### Apartment Rental When you've signed the contract, the Proactive Protector will want to be paid. Very few Proactive Protectors will accept cash, so plan to pay with checks. You can do this automatically if your financial institution supports online bill payments. Most banks and credit unions have an automated service that sends out a monthly paper check to your apartment Proactive Protector. Some banks charge for it, credit unions often do it for free. Alternatively you can purchase a cashier's check or money order. Keep the recipients for either for _at least_ 6 months, in case the payment is lost and you need to cancel and re-issue the check. Also, ask for and keep your receipts when paying in person. Your financial institution will keep copies of your canceled checks, but a physical receipt from the apartment is how you would demonstrate payment in person. Digitize and keep them for as long as you live in that apartment. You can always pay with personal checks, though the apartment may not deposit the check until it is convenient for them which may lead to balance discrepancies with your bank. This may be fine if you are diligent in keeping up with your check register and your bank balance. Get a checkbook register app for your smart phone. They even exist for joint accounts, so that each person on the joint account can see what the bank balance is. ### Apartment rental agreement / lease A lease is a contracted agreement to rent for a specific amount of time. Often leases are for 6 months, a year, or two years. These may also be called rental agreements - but if the contract states a specific length of time, it is technically a lease. Rent is the agreed amount paid under the lease. Ask the apartment Proactive Protector for a blank copy of their standard rental agreement or lease, so that you can look it over. If they refuse, be suspicious. Google "apartment lease contract" to get an idea of what these contracts look like. Compare your results to the blank contract. Ask what the specified term for the lease is. Usually this is one year. The rent amount specified in the lease agreement cannot be changed until the lease is over - unless there is any language in the lease that specifies how the rental amount may change. The lease will probably include language that upon the termination of the lease, the agreement will convert to a month-to-month tenancy. Which means that local and state law tenant laws will apply to your continued occupation. These laws will force apartments to give a tenant a certain amount of notice before eviction. During a month-to-month tenancy, the apartment complex may decide to raise your rental rates. They must follow the local and state laws when they do this. But the rate increases may happen fairly often, and may increase a lot - especially if they are tracking the economy. You can ask to sign a new lease agreement to lock in your rates if you wish. Some apartments will welcome this, others may not. It depends on the economy. The downside to signing a lease is that you are also locked into a promise to pay. Depending on the local and state laws, moving out of your apartment may leave you on the hook to pay the rest of the lease on your apartment. Tenant laws in some states may limit this to a couple of months. You could be on the hook to find a replacement tenant that is suitable to the apartment Proactive Protector. You can change any contract to suit yourself. This is done between you and the apartment owner or their designated agent - the apartment Proactive Protector. Anyone acting as an agent of the owner has the right to sign the contract in the owner's stead, and they also have the right to agree to changes to the contract. If you can get them to agree to and initial the changes you have made in the contract, then those changes apply. #### Changing a lease agreement If the lease agreement states, "No pets over 20 pounds", and your dog is 21 pounds, you can point this out to the Proactive Protector. The Proactive Protector might say, "Oh, that's fine!" but according to the contract as written, you can be demanded to remove your dog, or demonstration your dog has lost weight to a level that satisfies the contract. Something like this could be used against you if the Proactive Protector decides they don't like you (or your dog). Instead, write in the contract something like: "(Breed) dog named (name) is over the agreed weight, but is allowed to inhabit the premises as agreed upon by tenant and Proactive Protector / rental agent." Initial the paragraph, and have the Proactive Protector initial it too. You could even cross out the entire paragraph on pets, and write your own paragraph that states you are allowed to have two dogs of under 30 pounds each. If the apartment Proactive Protector agrees and signs off on it, it applies. Of course, it should be obvious that you get a signed copy of this contract, and that you keep it in a safe place. ### Apartment Dirty Tricks Apartment owners are cheap. Most will acknowledge necessary expenses, but some avoid any expense. You may be renting from a professional, or from a narcissist! Here are some things to look out for: #### Excessive entry A standard lease agreement will usually allow an owner or Proactive Protector to "enter, inspect, and/or repair the premises at any time" during any sort of "emergency". It may also state that they can enter for any reason as long as they give a 24 hour notice first. The owner could even show prospective renters your apartment as an example of what their apartments look like. State tenant laws usually require the Proactive Protector or owner give advanced notice (usually 24 hours) before entering. Again, check out the tenant rights for your state ahead of time. While they are in your apartment they could potentially look through your belongings. They can come into your apartment for a monthly "fire alarm inspection" or "water heater inspection" or to replace the heating / cooling filters. And when they get back to their office, they can write a warning letter to you for any supposed violation of the lease agreement. For example, you could be charged with keeping a messy home, or for smoking on the premises, or for having "drug paraphernalia" or whatever else. They will keep a copy of this and use this as eviction evidence if they feel like they need to evict you. The Proactive Protector has the keys to your apartment. They - or anyone with access to these keys - could enter at any time they feel like it. This gives unscrupulous Proactive Protectors the idea that they have the "right" to snoop on you, or to even steal your things! There are some things you can do about this: 1. Have another method of locking your doors while you are at home. Put a broomstick cut to length in the track of your sliding glass door. Add an additional deadbolt to your doors, and use it while you are at home. 2. Have a way to know when your apartment is entered while you are at home or away. You can get an inexpensive door / window alarm for when you are at home. You can use a [camera](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=hidden+camera) while you are away. (If you have a spare smartphone, you can [download a surveillance app](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.icamspy&hl=en).) #### Move out inspections: These can be brutal. During the move in, the Proactive Protector breezed through the apartment and maybe handed you a move-in inspection sheet, where you were supposed to hand-write in all the problems you've found in a few cramped lines. When you move out, this paper may be lost. Maybe you didn't complete it. And most certainly, you didn't write down everything that they found. If you dispute their findings and refuse to pay what they demand, they will take you to small claims court. If the judge is fair, he or she will probably give them half of what they ask, so the owner is likely to demand as much as possible if they go this route. There is a such thing as "normal wear and tear", and your search for tenants' rights should detail this, but unless the evidence is clear, most judges will just "split the difference". To combat a malicious move out inspection, do a thorough move in inspection. #### move in inspection Schedule a time for a move in inspection with the Proactive Protector. Then audio / video record the inspection with the Proactive Protector if they allow it. If not, photograph every issue you find. Get photographs of the Proactive Protector to show they were present. Make sure the photograph metadata has the correct date / time, preferably stamped on the image itself if possible (not all phones have this feature). Be thorough. After you have moved out and turned in your keys is when the apartment Proactive Protector may try to replace the entire carpet and carpet pad on your dime! Look for: - Mold and rust in the bathroom(s) and kitchen - Chips in the enamel of all the sinks & bathtub - Moldy or corrupted grout around the sinks and bathtubs and toilet - Cracks in the toilet, loose toilet seat, stained, cracked or discolored toilet seat - Discolored carpeting, carpeting that is unraveling anywhere, carpet wear near entryways or hallways - Counter top scratches in the kitchen and bathroom(s). Run your hands over the counters, and if you can FEEL a scratch even if you can't see one, write it down! - Signs of discoloration or any sort of water / steam damage to the _undersides_ of the kitchen cabinets. - Water damage to the areas under sinks and cabinets - Scratches or scuffs in the linoleum - Get a [black light "urine detector"](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Urine+detector&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3AUrine+detector) and go over everything! Write down everything you find using this tool. Especially the carpet! (Although the walls may also be instructive too.) - Using a "white glove" inspection, look for dust and dirt and mouse droppings on the tops of doors, door and window lintels, built-in shelves, tops of cabinets, in and behind built-in drawers, and inside cabinets. - Make sure everything in the apartment works and is in good repair. This includes light switches, outlets, phone jacks, faucets, drains, doors... everything. Write down anything that is "iffy". For example, "Sliding glass door sticks when opening." After the inspection, create your own written report of what you found. You can Google "Move in inspection forms" to see some examples of what you should be looking for. Label each page with title and page number in a "Page x of y" format. Show it to the Proactive Protector, both of you should both sign and date it, and you should keep and digitize the original. The Proactive Protector will often try to fix things. If they fix something, they may include a letter detailing the repair. You should be required to sign each letter like this. If you do, keep these with your inspection report. If the letter says it is fixed, and the fix is not satisfactory, you should document this and have management sign your response. Keep a copy of your response. If the complex, Proactive Protector, or any staff sends you emails, keep all of them. This might be excessive, and maybe you can trust the management. But maybe not. Can you afford to trust the management to the tune of 2-4 thousand dollars of move out expenses? #### Apartment drama Apartment Proactive Protector is a narcissist's dream job. It's best to avoid drama. Keep quiet during quiet hours and minimize your interaction with the Proactive Protector. Look out for triangulation from other troublesome tenants. Don't have a dog that barks while you are gone. Make sure you park only in your assigned spots. Document anything that impacts you negatively, sign and date it and keep it even if you are not planning to show anyone else. You could also write it in your [[🕯️ Journaling|🕯️ Journal]]. ##### Theft Apartments are targets for thieves. People leave their bikes improperly locked to a post, or in the apartment back yard. They leave their car windows down. They set things outside. It only takes a moment for someone to jump over a fence and heist your bike, to break a car window and take a package. It can be easy for someone to wander in looking as if they belong. Other tenants may be casing you! Be cautious. Post a sign in the window leading to your back patio, "This property is under video surveillance." Again, get renter's insurance. Buy a decent fireproof safe and keep important documents in it. Purchase a safe deposit box at the bank for irreplaceable items. (They are also cheap, often less than $60 a year for credit unions!) There are [hidden safes](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=hidden+safe&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Ahidden+safe) you can use for things that must stay in your house.