I have spent the entire day exhaustively looking for a new apartment, since my house is being torn down this summer. I had hoped to rent from my longtime landlord, but his properties are all rented up for the year, so I have been making phone calls, writing e-mails and looking at places for rent all day long. I will probably have to wait until Monday to hear back from most of the realty management companies that own properties around town, but I e-mailed and left phone messages to as many as I could find that had properties available. I'm a bit appalled at the market rates for even 1 bedroom apartments in the area. Kent is undergoing a rapid gentrification and that's driving rental prices through the roof. There is also a scarcity of 1 bedroom apartments here, as the lion's share of them seem to be 2 or more bedroom apartments, and quite pricey at that. Most of the places here in town are geared toward college students shacking up together in multi-unit apartments. It's hard to find affordable 1 bedroom apartments, especially ones that are walkable to downtown and the University, which is my desire as to where to live. I am becoming quite panicky as I am quite sure that most of the good rentals in town have already been snapped up for fall and I may be left with slim pickings at best. I've probably contacted well over a dozen realtors, apartment buildings and property owners thus far in hopes that I can have something signed and ready to move into, either in August or when I have to be out of here at the end of May. I am hoping that, by month's end, I will have a lease signed on something so that I can know what kind of space I will be moving into in order to be able to know what I can keep and what will need to either be pitched or put in storage until I can find someplace larger.
I keep hoping that I can save my house somehow and have it moved to another lot. I keep hoping that somebody will want to buy this beautiful old house and move it to safety. It's got three apartments, a 1 bedroom (where I live) and a 2 bedroom upstairs, and a 3 bedroom downstairs. Each unit has new or newly renovated bathrooms and kitchens. The house has recent vinyl siding and replacement windows, is well insulated and very snug. It has had well over $80,000 in improvements to it in the past 30 years. It would be a shame to just throw it away now. I envision it as a rental for older tenants who want to live in a walkable neighborhood close to downtown and the University. There is a serious shortage of housing geared toward older adults in this town and I know that people would find it very attractive to have a nice home in a walkable neighborhood of sturdy old houses and nice big trees, and I know just the spot, and that's on the next street over from where the house sits now. Kent State University owns a vacant plot of land on which this house would fit perfectly and it would be a very nice thing to have a home suitable for older adults who want a nice home near amenities. It would take the right person to persuade the University to sell the vacant plot of land and then to buy this house and get it moved there. I know, it sounds daunting, but I am convinced that the right person could make this happen, and I am waiting for that right person to appear to save the day, but in the meantime, I am also realistic enough to know that it may just not happen and that I had better have a Plan B in mind, that being relocating to another place. So I have spent a long day calling and e-mailing as many places as I can in hopes of finding that right place to live. I'm feeling pretty deflated right now and wondering how all of this will play out. I wish that I could move the Universe to my will, but few people have that ability, and I don't seem to be one of them. But I am sure as hell going to move heaven and earth to see if there is any way that I can save my home. And in the meantime, keep looking for another place to live should that prove unsuccessful.
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