Based on our learning from our last adventure, we opened up our search to include triplex-style buildings. It didn’t take long for us to find one by Lake Ontario that had a lot of potential. Did we finally find ‘the one’?
(not at all like the place we saw, but I can’t help myself)
Apartment #3: The Lake House
This place was seemingly doing gangbusters on Kijiji. After only a few days of being posted, it had close to 1,000 views. When we went to the open house, we were expecting things to be rather busy.
For the last two locations, area was the death knell. This time, this place was located in a great spot of the city close by public transportation. On top of that, it was steps away from Lake Ontario. The thought of being able to walk down the street and hit a path along the lake struck us as awesome.
Inside, the place was pristine. The entire inside had been renovated and was just a few appliances away from being completed. Of the places we’d seen to date, this one was also by far the largest. Steff and I immediately fell in love with it. When we got home, Steff had already begun drawing out floor plans of where our furniture could go.
However, there was a catch that did not sit well with me at all: no dedicated parking spot.
This particular area was in short supply of them. The landlord owned a few garages, but all of them were currently taken. Street parking was allowed with a permit, though it’s far from an ideal solution; particularly in a Canadian winter. Things got pretty tense between Steff and I, as this became seemingly the only aspect keeping us between scooping this place immediately. I could see that us not seeing eye-to-eye on this was breaking her heart, but this situation really brought out deep feelings of concern that I was struggling to cope with.
As we tried to work through this, we did go back to the place to get a rental application from the landlord. It was at this point where the ultimate deal-beaker had nothing to do with parking. During our conversation with the landlord and his wife, she really rubbed us the wrong way with her tone, which had a poorly-conceiled air of desperation to it. After that chat, we mutually agreed that this unfortunately, wasn’t the place for us.
Of the places we’d seen in the last year or so, none had come so close, yet so far. We loved so much about the place, but one factor really divided us. To Steff’s credit, she really respected my point of view. I respected hers. And we tried our best to make it work. In the end, we came away from this realizing that if there’s anything that divides us this much in a home, then this probably isn’t the right place for us.
In Third Person 