Make Lemonade with Bridgeport Bartering!!!

While talking with my old roommate Saturday evening I was informed that her upstairs neighbor was moving out of the building and that, if I was interested in saving $200 a month in rent, I should call up the building owner to grab the apartment as soon as possible. My one concern was coming up with the first month's rent and deposit on such short notice as all my bills and my November rent on the current apartment are usually due around the end of the month

I thought it over all day Sunday and called him this morning. By noon we arranged payment terms and had a handshake agreement. I move out of my current apartment this weekend; needless to say the extra $200 I save is going to a truck. The move should be easier this time around- like last year it's only a few trips down the alley. With the addition of a truck I should cut that move down even further.

Although I like my current place I'm really looking foward to moving, and not just because the new place has a working fireplace! This apartment was the result of a greedy building owner slicing in half a classic second floor apartment in one of these graystones one only finds in Chicago.

Example: There's a door in my living room. One would think that it leads to the outside. But it doesn't. It leads to what is now the closet in the front apartment. If these two apartments were the one single apartment the original architects intended that would be the dining room. The front hallway of the front apartment is now houses a kitchen that can only be found in Manhattan railcar-style apartments. That kitchen leads to a bathroom that exits to the stairwell originally intended for the apartment. Color me a pessimist, but I would want two ways to enter and exit my apartment. It certainly would have come in handy two months ago when one of my neighbors downstairs (long since gone from the building) threatened to "put a bullet in my ass" before he moved out.

But that's all history now. I'm just glad I'm returning to a building I really didn't want to leave in the first place. I plan on spending the extra savings wisely- catching up on credit card bills, saving for a spring vacation, paint for the new place. Should be fun.