Housing Woes

In our continuing search for an apartment/house/cottage close to Stanford's campus, Sean and I answered an ad for a cottage ON campus, a four-minute bike ride from the door of my office building, yesterday. Shit.

This is what we found.

And with this dilapidated little hovel, for the bargain price of $1500, one inherits an emphysemic 70 year old man and his ugly dog. Ed, the landlord, lives about 20ft from the front door of the cottage for rent, in a mobile home. Between the mobile home and cottage is one of his workshops. The other workshop is on the other end of the cottage. Not a lot of privacy. But wait, there's more. There's the old, crappy furniture (an Italian leather sofa, a box spring and mattress set, a huge TV) that comes with the rental - seeing as Ed lives in a mobile home, these inheritances are not exactly optional. Yum. Oh, and then there's the circuit box outside - a mess of wires just waiting to explode and take the house with it. And there's no sheet rock, just really old plaster, so you can't hang things on the walls, much less lean against them. I have to admit, the huge walk-in closet lined with shiny silver insulation amused me (if nothing else, one MUST keep their clothes warm), and almost distracted me from the godawful odor in the place. The windows are hanging to their frames by some miraculous power, the heater is at least 50 years old, the bathroom sink sits two feet off the ground and some of the walls are halfheartedly covered in wood paneling. Yep, $1500/month. You couldn't rent that tinderbox out in Alaska for more than $200.

Back to square one - here's hoping the guest house just off campus works out.