apartment life – College Admission at Loyola

Finding Your Apartment

By Parker Harris | July 10, 2020

Hey, glad you stopped by my post. I’m here to share with you some quick key tools/ideas you should use and consider when getting ready to rent out your own apartment!

1.Looking for Rental Apartments

I’d highly recommend using the following sights to get started when finding an apartment.

-Apartments.com

-HotPads.com

–Trulia <—(My personal favorite)

-RenJungle

-PadMapper

When you go to visit an apartment pay attention to what you see, and be ready with some basic questions. Take nothing you see for granted, don’t be afraid to ask questions. Some examples could

-“Do the windows open?”

-“What is the policy on pets?”

-“Is there a second exit in case of a fire?”

2. Find Roommates

Unless you have a lot of money around or are working on top of school, living alone is not an option. Look into getting some roommates. I currently live with 4 people and we split the cost of $2500 per month between all of us. If you don’t have any friends to room with, reach out to clubs, classes, and roommates.com. I cannot recommend this enough, I met some of my current roommates through clubs and classes that have become my friends just because I asked them about their living plans next year. Biggest thing I want to emphasize is don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Ideally try to find someone that responsible, respectful, and most importantly clean. Or don’t! Just make sure when getting roommates you find people that fit in to your atmosphere nicely instead of bringing people in who just want to live for a cheaper cost.

3. Knowing the Neighborhood

Since we’re living in Chicago picking the right neighborhood for you can be difficult. Safety can be an issue so make sure you check out the neighborhood during the day and then again at night. Walk around and see what it’s like. What’s around the neighborhood? Shops, restaurants, markets, coffee shops, or other night life?

When finding my place, I made sure to avoid being in a “food desert” or a place where there are few to no markets, restaurants, or places of shopping. I personally recommend that you find apartments around the Greenville and Morse area since they are very close to Loyola’s Lake-shore Campus on the sideline stop. They are filled with markets, restaurants, shops, and much more!

Another thing to keep in mind about the neighborhood is how long does it take for you to get to classes. Are you someone who rushes at the last minute, or likes to take their time? These could be important factors to whether you want to take public transport from your chosen location or walk!

4. Reading the Lease

Here’s a big one. You need to carefully read the lease and I mean everything! If you ever run into a problem with your landlord you can always use the lease to your advantage if they are breaking any of their own guidelines. Furthermore in some cases leases could be invalidated by having illegal clauses.

The last thing you want to do is get fined or even evicted from your apartment because you failed to following a “no smoking clause”. Know the ground rules.

5. Utilities

Find out which utilities you are responsible for… (heat,electricity,phone,internet,hot water, etc…)

A big mistake some people make when getting into an apartment is that they don’t ask enough questions about the apartment and what utilities it comes with. This actually happened to me this year when picking my current apartment. Another place I was planning on moving into actually offered me and my roommates NO utilities. We immediately reconsidered and found the place we are living in now which offers us all traditional utilities excluding internet and phones though. Still, a very important thing you should definitely look into before committing to your very own place.

As I continue to learn as a proud rentee, I will be updating you with whatever knowledge I gather. I wish you best of luck in your journey and hopefully this helps you out.

Please remember to ASK QUESTIONS when finding your apartment!!!

Thanks!

Hey Jude

By | September 20, 2012

If this blog seems a little out of place, I apologize.

There’s someone who something that I wanted to blog about in July, but I got so busy with my birthday, work and getting ready for school that I didn’t have time to do so. Luckily, I’ve found that time now. So excuse me as I rewind to this previous summer aka two months ago.

This summer, I finally got a chance to do something I’ve always wanted to do: cat sit! And not only did I get to cat sit, I got to kitty sit, which is infinitely better and cuter. My friend Delaney was actually the one who agreed to a cat sit for her friend, Julia, but once I heard that she had the kitty in question, I stole the kitty insisted in helping her out.

And that’s how I got to take care of the most precious kitty in the history of the world, Jude. (And yes, before you ask, he is named after the Beatles song.)

Excuse me as I resort to junior high grammar, but he was the CUTEST wittle baby I had ever seen, and it was awesome kittysitting him. I felt like the cool aunt who gets to spoil her nieces and nephews before depositing them on their parents’ doorstep at the end of the day.

And at the end of the day, I was really glad to drop this little rascal off at Delaney’s when I was done playing with him.

Jude was a little trouble maker. Within minutes of getting to my apartment, he got himself stuck in our dishwasher:

However, he always balanced out those moments by doing something that was “Awwwww.” worthy. For example, after rescuing him, I had to go work an overnight shift. It was a very long and tiring shift, but luckily for me, I woke up to this after my post-work nap:

It was adorable and it reminded me just how awesome it was to live off campus in my own apartment during summer. While there are plenty of opportunities to play with animals (volunteer with PAWS if you can!) while living on campus, you can’t have one in your room unless it can breathe underwater.

And underwater breathing animals aren’t always that cute or sweet. They can’t cuddle up and hug your Giraffe Pillow Pet:

But cat sitting for Jude wasn’t all fun and games. One time after I ran errands, while I was putting my groceries in the refrigerator, I realized that I hadn’t seen Jude for awhile. I started calmly searching for Jude by ripping the whole apartment apart. I convinced myself that I let him out and was clearly the worst kitty sitter in the history of kitty sitting and would never pass school or be a good nurse or good pet sitter or be a good human being.

Luckily, before I called Delaney in a panic, I took one final look around the apartment. It was then that I found Jude hiding on my bed:

Even after all the fun we had with him, my roommates and I were more than happy to return Jude to Delaney and have an apartment that wasn’t covered with kitty litter. But, taking care of Jude was definitely a highlight of my summer. I knew I needed to blog about him…even if I’m two months late in doing so!