Went and saw a few places today. Both places I called about yesterday were rented today, heh. Here are my notes:
Hancock at Mass Ave, south side of mass ave.
Building was rather rundown outside. Apartment had sloping floors in nearly all the rooms. low ceilings. $1500, 1+ br. Avail Sept 15th. Uh, Pass.
900 Mass Ave, second floor. south side of street.
Apartment faces mass ave, so noise will be a problem, but there is a small yard with trees in front, which might help muffle the sounds. Probably no worse than living on 26th and guerrero. Building was cute, apartment was rather odd layout. *Tiny* bathroom - bathtub is big enough to sit in. not much additional space, even though it was listed as a 1+. $1500. Sept 15th. No laundry in unit, a laundromat on the corner.
Tremont near Broadway. Second floor of house.
Pretty close to the office, just a couple minute walk down Broadway. Enormous place. Easily the biggest kitchen I’ve seen in a long time. Big wide open rooms, small office space off the main bedroom area. Pocket doors separating bedroom from entryway. Downside is it’s a family’s home. They live downstairs. This has both good points and bad points. Bad point is that the privacy situation seems like it might be a little more fluid than I’d like (the doors to the individual floors didn’t appear to have locks?) Large back room for guests. Brand new washer/dryer in the apartment. $1500.
Chauncy at Mass Ave.
“Pre WWII building”, rather boxy exterior, a real apartment building. The layout was rather strange. 2 halves of a sliding door - one half opens into a small closet, the other into a small room (office, guest room, etc.) General lack of closets and storage space (particularly in the bedroom and kitchen.) Location is great, though, really close to Harvard Square. $1400.
Bay St at Franklin St.
Wildly sloping kitchen floor. Very odd layout - 2 doors into the apartment, which takes the entire second floor of the buiding. Tiny guest room, reasonable-sized master br. Just a couple blocks from mass ave, but is really quiet. $1250.
The Chauncy apartment wins on location, being just a couple of minutes from Harvard Square. But I just couldn’t get over the dormitory/barracks feel of the place, or the almost total lack of closets and storage space. Not that I’ll have much stuff, but the thought of having my floor space curtailed severely by a wardrobe or something similar.. just doesn’t really excite me. This place is one block from one of the two places I was supposed to see to day.
Aside from the rent being rather high ($1500) and it being a family’s home, the place on Tremont and Broadway pretty well blew me away. It’s enormous. Since it’s on the second floor the heating bill should be a little better in the winter. It’s close to the office, right across the street from a pretty good sized park, has a backyard (which I’m not clear on the sharing aspect of..)
Maybe I’ll call and check up on the door locking situation.
