I visited a few places on Tuesday, found two I really liked, and decided on Chateau Village today. Free Washer/Dryer in unit, free carport, and February free (so we can move anytime) pretty much sealed the deal for me. The bedrooms are a little smaller than what I saw at the other place I really liked (Glen Oaks East), but I think it will suit our needs fine. Eventually we hope to have a house, anyway.

We could be moving stuff as early as next weekend, provided our application is accepted. Rent will be a little more expensive than what we are paying now, (~$650/mo) but the W/D in unit makes up for that, since I won’t have to spend $100+ in quarters every month. The kitchen has more counterspace, which I am extremely happy about.

As for the apartment itself, its bigger than the one in TC, though the bathroom is much more cramped. There is a 1/2 bath in the master bedroom, but neither has much counter space. Its a garden-level apartment, so it is sunk about 3ft into the ground and all of our windows are at ground level, so Bart made up some “devices” so the windows are secure. The living room is huge, there is an actual dining room area, and our bed fits into the master bedroom with plenty of room for me to actually walk around the 3 sides of it. There is less counter space in the kitchen than our previous place, but there is an area where I can place a small table to make up for it.

We’ve had some issues, the appliances are really old and I’m not sure why the apt complex didn’t replace them. The dishwasher leaked all over the floor the first time we used it. I cleaned that up ok, but when the maintenance guy came to “fix” it he ran it again, and it filled up with water.. which leaked out again and soaked our dining room carpet.

The people who live above us can be extraordinarily loud at times, esp their kids who seem to be running clomping around like elephants in the evening.

We also had a problem with our rent – they messed up and didn’t credit us properly for our free month in Jan and sent us a “demand” notice in the mail (basically, pay or get out). Thankfully the apartment manager straightened it out and was really apologetic about the whole thing.

There was only one cable outlet in the entire apartment – in the living room, so Bart’s desk needed to go there instead of the second bedroom with mine. This cut the living room in half basically, but I think once we get it all arranged it’ll be fine.

Been trying to do wireless from my PC to the gateway in the livingroom, but it hasn’t been working too well. Even bought a new wireless card thinking the old one was junk – that helped some but I still get poor reception (even though Windoze says the signal strength is “Very Good”).

I set Bart’s laptop up with Ubuntu, and put a 2nd SATA drive in my PC and installed Kubuntu on it. I need to find linux drivers for the Linksys wireless card in my PC before I can try to get online with Kubuntu though.