French apartments

Sorry for the hiatus, but we've been moving. We finally found a new apartment...er...back at the beginning of November. This is cause for celebration (much like the carte de sejour was) because as anyone who has lived in or near Paris knows, finding an apartment is an arduous task.

The last time I lived in Paris, I searched for a month. This did not mean browsing the housing ads and circling a few places that might interest me and then calling when it was convenient. No. Apartment hunting means WAR. It means calling at least ten places every single day and making appointments and then trying desperately to please the landlord and hope that (s)he'll take pity on you and let you have a place to live.

This time Gaby did all of this for us. My hero!! Still, the apartment hunt seemed to be an uphill battle.

The first problem was with the ads themselves. Just because they're posted and the paper says they're "new" doesn't mean that they really are. Many times, we found out that the apartments in our "new" ads had been rented for several weeks already and that the ad was more than a month old. Another problem with the ads was that some landlords just lie about their apartments. For instance, "10 minute walk to the train station" often really means "10 minute sprint but 25 minute walk". Oh, and when they say an apartment is 30 meters squared, they are counting every single space in the apartment, including every single stair and even the closet with the water heater in it. I've seen some very small "30m2" apartments.

Second problem? The landlords ultimately get to choose who lives there and their criteria can be very subjective. It's almost like going to an interview if you're dealing with the landlord personally. My last landlord picked me because I was an English teacher and he wanted extra lessons. Gaby and I were not so lucky in one case. We visited one very charming studio one Friday evening during an open house. What we didn't realize was that the landlady had already decided she wanted a single female student to live there. So, she told any young girls to visit the apartment on Thursday and any young guys or couples to visit on Friday. What a waste of time for us! By Friday, she'd already chosen her new renter and we were just there...well, I don't know why we were there.

Last problem. Money. If you go through an agency, (which we finally did out of desperation), they absolutely require that you make not just double the rent of an apartment, but THREE times the amount. As a lecturer at the university, I make very little money for big-city living. Under their criteria I would often not be able to rent a 9m2 studio. Nine meters squared is the size of a walk-in closet by the way. But Gaby and I together were fine with his fam as co-signers. Whew!

Now for the good news. The apartment is fabulous!! It's not a studio which is nice because I like having my rooms separated. It is literally 2 minutes from the train station, but not facing the train station so we don't have a noise problem. And the best part? It overlooks the Seine.


Okay okay, that's not exactly our view. But it almost is! I took the picture below from our living room window.


Autumn here was gorgeous. All the leaves are gone now, but that just makes it easier to see the ducks and swans swimming in the Seine.

And the inside? Well, we're still busy decorating which is hard to do when we're both desperately trying to finish papers or dissertation chapters. In any case, it's good to have such a quaint place to call our own. :)