Toronto Report #3: A Room of One's Own

Apartment-hunting with Maita has been a disaster of humorous proportions. Since we arrived on the 29th and the 30th, most of the good places for September 1 had already been taken. Of the 60+ places we'd called/e-mailed, only around 1/4 were still available. We were left with basement rooms (could you live underground with little to no natural light in winter?), expensive apartments in high-rise buildings ($1200 minimum for 2 bedrooms, multiply by 45 to get the equivalent in pesos), and other options that we couldn't stomach:

1. The Stinky -- Maita and I were chipper, hoping to get lucky on our first try. Then our faces fell: the 2-bedroom apartment was right by a noisy intersection, above a Chinese herbs/acupuncture store, in a building whose state left much to be desired. We went up the rotten wood stairs and hallway -- which smelled of piss. Old piss preserved, clinging to the walls. We ran out of there.

2. The Scary -- The 3-bedroom house on a quiet, residential street looked promising from the outside, with quaint bay windows. Then the door opened and out came white-haired Mrs. Walker with HEAVY CONCEALER under her eyes (which looked like caked Caladryl). She gave us a tour of the house that had cracking walls, a showerhead-less bathroom, and 2 dark rooms that could have had crystal meth addicts hiding in the closets. And she started lecturing: against heavy footsteps (she lived in the basement), smoking (an old tenant set fire to half of the back patio), and overnight visitors. We half-ran out of there.

3. The Iffy -- We took the train to the far Roncesvalle area, which looked like the Polish/Eastern European section of the city, with jazz bars and antique shops nearby. The house had an old man, a big dog, and a fat white guy on the porch. Vlad (the fat white guy) showed us the 2 bedrooms for rent, which were pretty big and bright. But: we'd have no common living area, we'd have to share a bathroom with the family, the dog was allowed in the house, and Vlad had a room right next to one of the bedrooms. All this sounded iffy, even after Vlad lowered the price to $425 per room. We walked out of there.

4. The Kookily Strict -- The 2 rooms for rent ad sounded ideal -- or at least the prices did: $420 and $460. So I ignored the detail that these people had a vegetarian kitchen. We went up to the 4-bedroom house (that had 2 beautiful Persian cats) and were asked to take off our shoes by two people I'll call Olive and Mr. Ugly. We were shown the rooms (which were considerably different in terms of size and window light -- one of us would suffer). And Olive said: no meat cooking in the house. And I asked: how about ham in the fridge, and tuna in cans? And Mr. Ugly said curtly: not too enthusiastic about that. Which is when I shut down, even while Maita continued trying to charm them. I'm sorry, when it comes right down to it, I can't live without SOME sort of flesh (the edible, digestible kind -- and fine, the other kind too). And Mr. Ugly was sullen...and ugly.

5. The Maybe -- The 6-bedroom house very near U of T seemed nice enough, but it would be expensive: $3000 for 6 rooms + utilities + Internet/phone. And Maita's friends weren't too hot about it, over e-mail and in person. The picture at the top of this entry is of what would've been my room on the 3rd floor, with a pretty window facing the front. I'd always wanted to live in an attic with slanted walls and a desk by the window -- even after seeing Secret Window, that Stephen King movie where Johnny Depp plays a writer who lives in an attic and goes mad. Too bad we had to give up this place -- or maybe not. It's going to be hard keeping my sanity intact here.