Pie Apartment

[juldea]

Time for another episode of "Juldea debates an apartment" theater, this time starring a new upcoming star, the Pie Apartment!

Craigslist ad: http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/fee/977224976.html

Gmaps Street View: front view, side view, back view.

So, let's get the really big glaring negative out of the way first:

It's the 3rd-floor attic apartment. It is small, and half of the walls are slanted. I am an idiot for not taking pictures, but I didn't. However, google image search helps me out here for me to say that the bedroom has the shape of this or this (although not as awesome as the second image, of course) except the slanted walls extend out far enough for the portion wherein they are vertical to be, hrm, 3 feet high? So some space that is intriguing as far as use. There were a couple of guys viewing the apartment as I did, and they left complaining they were claustrophobic in the space for being too tall. But... I'm not that tall. So the space is a challenge, but not a dealbreaker. It's not an apartment that will ever host parties, though, and tall visitors would have to be conscious of their heads. ;)

3rd floor. Moving will be a bitch, and I hate dragging my ass up two flights of stairs at the end of a long day, but really, that's me being lazy. However, no piano option here. Even if we could teleport it up the stairs, it wouldn't fit in the apartment.

It's not too clean. There's dirty carpet I'd want to either completely cover, or rip out and replace. (Bonus: such a small place means acquiring carpet remnants.) That said, the last tenant moved out yesterday, so the landlady hasn't had much time to clean.

Not a ton of cabinetry for all my crazy kitchen gadgets.

Now, that said, pros:

Location, location, location. It's about half a mile/10-15 minutes from Porter Square station, and is literally next door both a major chair grocery store and a laundromat. It's above a well-rated pie shop (yay, pie!), and there is both a burger joint nearby and a Chinese place of mixed quality next door. It's near to jmspencer and sectionchild, rigel and contradictacat, chaiya and hakamadare and crazybone, and both the commuter rail that takes me to Waltham and the subway that takes me anywhere else. So in short, the location is AWESOME.

Price. It's a 1-bd, not a studio, in that location, for $850. (When I first made the appointment to see the place, I was planning on asking, "What's the catch?" Now I know the catch is the size/shape, but... is it catchy enough?) No bills are included, but there's no gas, only electric, and the landlady claimed the previous tenant was paying only $50/month. The pie shop below grants heating assistance, apparently, which I'm all happy with. Even if I double that electric bill, it's well within my budget. She doesn't need any security or pet deposit, just first and last.

Basement storage included, and even - this is kind of awesome - the previous tenant had an agreement with the second-floor guy, who is apparently really cool, that she kept her apartment door and the basement door open all the time, and her cat wandered the stairwells all day long. She apparently even kept the litterbox in the basement, which is an AWESOME idea. (One of the big problems I had when viewing the space was, "Where does the litterbox go?")

Landlady has pink-streaked hair and blue mascara and owns the building with her wife, and is adamant about meeting and knowing her tenants and not going through realtors. Previous tenant was a nurse who lived there for seven years. Painting, ripping up carpet, etc etc is all fine!

Fixtures were all up-to-date. All outlets (and there were enough) were grounded, ceiling lights were new and working, water heated up quickly and water pressure was nice. Oven was small but clean, fridge fine, and cabinets that existed were clean and in good repair. One wall in the living room had built-in shelving.

I told her I was really interested, but I was going to sleep on it and get back to her tomorrow. I need to analyze how sad I will be if I call back tomorrow and she says someone else took it. I need to look critically at my furniture and how it might fit. I need to think about how much space I need in a living place, knowing that I spend so much time out of my house, and so much of my time in my house on the computer or in bed.

So, yeah. Ponderous. Anyone have any clever ideas? Have you ever lived in a space built like that, and if so how did you make it work?