Re-Lease Me

I know, I know. I shouldn’t count my chickens before they hatch. (Unless I’m planning to make an omelet! LOL!) But this afternoon, Melanie and I signed our lease agreements for another year and I’m feeling fantastic. Once again, we get to keep our free cable and in-apartment washer and dryer, the latter of which is especially important. And, after two years of being in Tallahassee, they are only now increasing our rent, and by only $30 per month. That’s not bad at all, in my opinion. I expected our rent to increase every year, and I thought it might go up as much as $50 when it did increase. A one-time $30 increase as we go into our third year living here is nothing to complain about. Especially with the aforementioned amenities, which weren’t promised beyond our first year here. Nice.

Perhaps I’m extra giddy because we received a note on our door a few days ago telling us that our rent was going to increase by $45 per month (because sewer and water, which had previously been “complimentary,” would now cost $15 extra). The note also stated that the washer and dryer and the cable would cost $45 per month and $50 per month, respectively, if we wanted to keep either of them. We wouldn’t have kept cable, and we would’ve tried to purchase a washer and dryer rather than pay $500 per year to rent them, but that would be a steep increase in our budget overall. Well, today, when we talked to the powers that be, we were told that the note on our door had been a form letter that wasn’t entirely accurate. While rent would go up $30 per month, nothing else would change. Maybe it was all part of some elaborate ruse to make us feel better about the $30 increase, but I would feel good either way. Heck, even with the increase, we’ll be paying less than we did for a two-bedroom apartment in Atlanta, and we’re in a three-bedroom here. And here, they actually respond to maintenance requests!

So, if this is all such great news, why the fuss about counting chickens before they hatch? Well, you just never know how good things will remain. The entire staff around here has changed over the last several months, and I think they have either stopped or decreased some of the routine maintenance they used to do. They used to come in every three months and change our air filters, for example, but that hasn’t happened in quite a long time now. It makes you worry, but the newer staff seems pleasant, which is a good sign. And they’ve actually been doing more community stuff around here lately, like showing free kids’ movies in the clubhouse and having free pizza. (That was our dinner tonight!) I’m actually more worried about the immediate process of getting our lease finalized. We’ve signed the main document, but there are myriad other forms we have to give them, and sometimes the fact that our income is heavily supplemented by student loans causes headaches. There can be some extra rigmarole involved with that. But, all in all, I’m a happy man!