Cold dark basement of the soul
Today was my first serious attempt at apartment hunting in Toronto and all in all I'm pretty satisfied with how it's going so far. One of the landlords I saw said that it seems like the insanity of the last couple of years in the rental market has subsided somewhat. This is good, because my previous rental experiences of the last couple of years has been somewhat sheltered. A brief history of the arduous searching over the last little while:

2002: "Hi Grandma! Can I stay with you?"

2001: [Newspaper Ad]: 2 bdr bungalow, garden, pool, fully furnished, maid service (cleaning and laundry). [Price]: equivalent of $350 Canadian a month. [Phone conversation]: "That seems a bit expensive. Is satellite included?"

2000: "Hi Mom! I'm home!"

Of course, I was also sheltered in university, living in the student paradise that is halifax. There are tons of beautiful, old houses available for students living close to school for under $400 a month. Unfortunately, my ability to select living quarters is remarkably poor, most notably my third year university flat, which was notable for a) receiving a visit from the fire department who were suprised that people were living there because "We condemned the place last year" b) receiving another visit from the fire department because one of the many people who stayed there without paying rent set the curtains on fire c)having the radiator in my apartment bursting the first week I was there, flooding my room, forcing me to pull up the shag carpet so that it wouldn't rot because the 90-year-old deaf and arthritic landlord tried to do the repairs himself, thereby leaving me with a plywood floor half-heartedly covered by old blankets for the year d) at one point having two (2!) piles of pizza boxes reaching from the floor to the ceiling, waiting to be thrown out and e) finding an article in the newspaper article with a picture of our house without a back wall, which was useful in explaining that the odd angle of the house was due to the wall not being put back on properly. (Well, one could argue that (b) and (d) were not so much the fault of the apartment, but I would say that the horrendous living conditions incited the horrendous way we treated the place).

Anyways, I have all faith that I'll be able to find much better spot, somewhere in Toronto, potentially by the end of the week. Or so the plan goes. My only absolute requirement at this point is that the ceiling be higher than 7 feet, which is much harder to find than you would expect.