Apartment Hunting in Los Angeles

I got a GREAT story for ya this week! As you've probably noticed, I've given up almost completely on posting on Sundays. Maybe Wednesday will be my new day. Maybe I'll make it back to Sunday. We'll see. Anyway, here goes...

I've been really busy lately, and not sleeping well, and it's gotten to the point that I really need my own apartment. I found a likely-sounding ad on craigslist...$545/month to live with 'the two nicest guys in LA', Andy and Brice. I e-mailed them and got a reply from Andy. He assured me that Juney would be welcome at their place and that it was a wonderful apartment, and I scheduled a time to go over and check it out.

Andy and Brice's place was in Hollywood, which is where I'm doing most of my crashing these days. My hope is to find a place somewhere in this general area. Hollywood places are really expensive, so if I could get into a dog-friendly place for only $545 a month it would be almost perfect. I decided to walk over there because I had a really good parking spot. LA parking is a blog unto itself, maybe I'll cover that next week.

As I approached the address, I grew increasingly impressed with the area. It was quiet, seemed fairly nice, and there were some promising-looking restaurants in the general vicinity. I arrived at the building and Andy came out to meet me.

Andy initially seemed a little weird to me...there was a sort of nervous quality about him, and he seemed a little too nice. He also turned out to be Hungarian, so I chalked it up to cultural differences. We went inside.

The apartment turned out to be a 1-bedroom place. Andy and Brice had beds in the living room and the bedroom was for rent. Brice approached me, he also had an accent I couldn't readily identify. I got the same weird vibe from Brice...a little too nice, and kind of nervous. After a hasty introduction, they ushered me into the bedroom.

There was a dude in there! An angry-looking young man sitting at a desk with headphones and a laptop. He looked up as we entered, not saying much. Andy and Brice assured me that he would be moving out the next day. He had decided to move out at very short notice, leaving them needing to fill the room as soon as possible. The room itself was actually pretty nice for $545 a month; lots of space, etc. The big downside was that the only closet space and bathroom was in the bedroom, which basically meant that if I lived there my room would be a public area.

We went back out to the living room, and Andy and Brice ran through a laundry-list of reasons that this was the most wonderful apartment in Hollywood. Then they began asking me if I thought I might like to move in. Now, usually in situations like this there's a sort of mutual hesitancy on the part of the apartment tenants and the prospective owner; it's a kind of a weird situation to decide whether or not to live with someone after meeting them once. These guys didn't seem too worried though. They were even a little pushy.

I was definitely getting weird vibes from Andy and Brice, but I was still kind of tempted by the cheapness and good location of the apartment. Maybe I could hang up a curtain or something...
I was still suspicious about the situation with the current inhabitant of that bedroom, though. Andy and Brice had told me he was leaving to go back to France (evidently he was French) because he couldn't find a good job.

I told them I wanted to see the room again, and went over to knock on the door. Andy informed me that I didn't need to knock, I could just walk in. I did, and the French guy looked up at me. I smiled and told him I wanted to check out the room some more, and proceeded to do so. Clean bathroom, 3 desks, the bed was a little too soft.

The French guy asked me what I did, and I told him, and we started chatting. He started telling me about his job as an audio engineer or whatever, and I offered my condolences that he couldn't find a job in LA. He kind of sighed, looked over towards the living room where Andy and Brice were, and began writing something on a scrap of paper.

"Yeah, basically, I couldn't find a job so I have to go back to France, and basically, that's what happened..."

At this point he held up the piece of paper. He had written on it:

"They stole my computer."

I looked from the paper to his face. His eyes were screaming "STAY AWAY FROM ANDY AND BRICE. THEY ARE NOT THE TWO NICEST GUYS IN LA."

I continued the conversation with the poor guy for a few more seconds, so Andy and Brice wouldn't know he had tipped me off. Then I went back out and played along a little longer, pretending to be interested in the place and walking out with a copy of the lease. About a block away I trashed it, went home, and spent the rest of the night trying to figure out exactly what the heck had gone on in that apartment.



So that's the story. I'm very excited to sleep tonight, because the guy who was subletting my buddy Rudy's roommates' room seems to have moved all his stuff out, but she still doesn't get back for another week or two. That means I get to sleep in a room with a door tonight, on a futon! To me right now that feels like a penthouse suite at the Four Seasons! I'm going to sleep like a King!!!

We went back out to the living room