Moving into Your First Apartment-a Useful Tip

You have signed your lease, dropped the deposit and collected your keys, now you are ready to move in. Making an apartment an actual home is a continuous process. One area that may get overlooked at this time of rushing around is the environment you will be living in. When searching for an apartment, no doubt you made your decision based on the best area you can afford and using your common sense, you considered issues such as, security, aesthetics and the practical things like the distance to your nearest grocery store. But living in an apartment, you are in close proximity with other people that are not related to you, and may not be on friendly terms with you. This is the place where you will be coming to at the end of the day or a place that you should be able to relax in. That is why before your move belongings in, it is a good idea to take a tour and take note of the environment. If you can, go there different times of the day for example during the morning and later on in the evening, so you know what its like with the people coming home from work and so on. Nothing in this world is a perfect fit and you have decided on the best apartment you could get, the next step would be to maximize your comfort. This tour would prepare you for unavoidable annoyances and help you make good decisions about how to arrange your furniture. There are three areas that could possibly be helped with a walk through.

First, there are the rules and regulations of the apartment. It would be better if you checked beforehand, but some people don’t bother with that. Usually the landlord and the tenant walk through the apartment and agree on the condition before signing a contract, but sometimes things come up after the fact, or at the time of the walk through future tasks are verbally agreed on must be checked up on. One such example would be, the landlord promises to fix a dripping sink and hasn’t done so yet. If you are responsible for water, that could increase your bill. Another situation would be, if you suddenly notice that this place has roaches. You don’t want infestations imbedded in your belongings. Make sure you know your rights as a tenant. Do you have a fire alarm? Is their adequate security? Would you need any additions? Then there are the hours of facilities, for example if they have a laundry service or a pool or an exercise room. Finally, if you want to paint or hang things up, make sure you refer to the details of your contract as you have your walk through.

Another area to contend with is privacy, noise and smells. How much do the walls of your apartment protect you from all these irritations? This is good illustration of why you should go when the building in filled with is residents. Smells and noise can’t be helped much, but when walking along the hallway to your space, check to see if they are discernable as you shut the door. There is comfort in knowing the limitations of the wall barriers before hand and you have time to come up with compromises and solutions with your neighbors or with your self. One such example would be if someone in the building uses a particular brand of window cleaner or they have a habit of dancing at three in the morning. Some solutions, (short of complaining every single time) are furniture arrangement, earplugs, doing things at certain hours or doing activities elsewhere. Another idea is arranging your furniture so activities that need silence are in a room where you can’t hear too much of the surrounding din. And if it is a particular aroma that bothers you, you have time to plan the way you set up your home so that the room you spend most of the time in, is the least affected.

Arranging furniture may be necessary in the case of privacy. When you are making your tour, check to see where the issues are. Whether it would be a window in an awkward spot, the toilet that basically sits in the kitchen, a spot by the mail where neighbors attack you with endless small talk or even a wonderful balcony that overlooks the bar next door with a view of customers throwing up. Take notes if you need to. It goes both ways, you may be a pain to your neighbor. Can you hear neighbor’s voices? Check in different rooms. You will be able to gauge where to be if you need to have conversations you don’t want overheard.

Finally, there is how you are going to set your place up and what things you need to buy. Taking a tour would help with furniture arrangement and storage. Measure the dimensions of the rooms and draw a diagram if you like, taking in account all the issues above. Consider other items such as the amount of built in storage available and the space allotted to you in the storage room. Check out the appliances supplied. Is there a bath, a shower or both? The water quality, is it an issue with you? Look at the flooring, is it carpeting or bare? Is that carpet going to be a pain? Is that flooring too ugly to look at? How hard will it be to keep it clean ? You could also take note of the temperature in the different rooms. If the place is stuffy or cool, if it is north facing or south facing may indicate the extra heat needed in the winter and these may add to your bills. Your electric bill may also be affected by your refrigerator. If you are supplied with an old model, the warmer the kitchen, the more energy is needed to cool it down. Those are a few things to keep in mind when taking a look at your place before you move in. A few observations before hand may save you a little money and annoyance.