Of lucky cats and lottery tickets, or: How we managed to (finally) find our Brooklyn apartment

Last weekend. Impending homelessness: 2 days away and counting. We were down to the wire. Saturday was slightly, and disappointingly, non-eventful. None of the apartments we saw were particularly awful, but none particularly appealed to us either. Saturday's moonrise brought another sleepless night, another morning on Craigslist before dawn.

Sunday started out worse. We were piloted by a Hasidic man* with a bluetooth earpiece in a minivan to 3 of the worst hovels we'd seen so far. I'm talking about holes in the floor, below which cockroaches lay in anticipation for the dark, when they could emerge in droves, floors so warped I was afraid they would collapse soon, layers of plaster missing from the walls, decades-old refrigerators and stoves whose metallic surfaces had long since yielded to oxidation... Maybe we should just suck it up and offer a whole year's rent to the management company that rejected us with 6 months up front, if these places were the alternative.

With a heavy heart, we sat in a local cafe waiting for 1:30pm, when we were meant to meet with our broker, Jaime, who claimed he'd found us the "perfect" place... for only $1875 monthly... Seeing as 1) the place we last applied to through him in this neighborhood rejected us, and that place was "only" $1800, 2) that extra 75 bucks may not seem like much, but it was frankly beyond our budget and 3) it was in a less-savory part of town, we did not hold up much hope.

I remembered seeing on Craigslist the day before a listing for an open house for a by-owner apartment in the neighborhood at 1pm. We decided to give it a shot, even though with previous by-owner apartments we'd either been disappointed (cockroaches in the tub and such) or beaten to the punch. We met Ron, the owner, and he brought us up to the top floor of the 4-story walk-up. We were immediately attracted to the idea of Ron as a landlord: in his 30s, I suspect, he'd bought the brownstone and done much of the renovation on his own. He seemed genuine, helpful, reasonable and down-to-earth. We established a good rapport, especially after I learned he was a fish-eating vegetarian as well. And the apartment: hardwoods, massive closet space, sunny, gas stove, decent-sized kitchen, large living and bedrooms. And a roof deck. A block from the train. We loved it. We asked for an application, promised to fax it along with all the necessary paperwork that afternoon, and emerged, slightly crestfallen when we saw another young-ish couple waiting outside for a viewing, complete with adorable small dog."At least it's not a baby," I said to Karel, alluding to the way an owner had fawned over one at an open house the day before, after which we joked about renting one for the day. I think Tate would actually be able to turn on the charm for us very well. What do you say, Dave and Michelle? Although, not being married, that may turn out to actually work against us...

At any rate, we walked down the block, virtually skipping, wondering about the next step. Do we wait? Do we meet with Jaime anyway? Jaime was planning, the next morning, on approaching the management company for that apartment where we offered 6 months up front again, trying to re-apply now that I had a job (they rejected us before they took a look at my employment letter). Do we have him do that and also apply for Ron's spot? If we got Ron's spot, I'd prefer that: same neighborhood, no broker fee. However, that certainly was in no way a guarantee, regardless of our rapport. On the other hand, if we did re-apply to the former spot, we'd lose a $900 good-faith deposit if we later decided found out we did, indeed, get Ron's spot.

Our course of action, we decided (thank Buddha Karel was with me for this round of apartment viewing), would be this: cancel the appointment with Jaime, photocopy the necessary documents and deliver them, along with the application, to Ron in person, and play the waiting game with the other apartment. Jaime wouldn't renegotiate without our final ok, and it had already been on the market for a while; we figured it was worth the gamble.

So it was off to the corner shop for some photocopy mania. This being Mother's Day, one local mother was treating herself to some lottery tickets. Winning $10 on the first one, she bought a couple more. Before she left the store, she had won $110. I needed some of her luck! I told her such, and she rubbed some off on me. Karel and I crossed our fingers that it would work.

After delivering all the paperwork, it was the waiting game, along with 2 doubles in a row at the new job, concurrent with having to relocate to Pete's apartment as Ramin, who we'd been subletting from, had returned. It was not the easiest of days. Ron called Monday: he was wondering if we could send him proof we had some money in the bank, understandably so since our jobs were both so new. I spent an hour before work Tuesday morning partaking in faxing mania again. On edge and not looking forward to the second half of my second double in a row, I took a walk to help my nerves, and happened to pass by a Japanese gift shop.

One thing you should know about Karel and I: we are obsessed with those good-fortune cats, the kind you see in every shop and restaurant in every Chinatown and in every Asian country (at least Southeast Asian). You know: the gold ones, with the rocking hands? We have 3. They are meant to disperse, well, good fortune. The little Japanese gift shop had some, done, however, in the Japanese style: good fortune Hello Kitty. They came in different colors, and depending on the color you chose and where you placed them in your house, they brought you different kinds of luck. There was no color that was geared particularly toward the homeless, so I decided to go with the red one, who promised a good job. As I had not done a particularly good job at the new job the night before, and as a good "real" job was the next step after procuring a homestead, I figured this was a good choice.

With my red hello good fortune kitty stashed safely in my locker, I completely rocked it at work. Perfect flow, no rookie mistakes, great tips. Thanking the kitty as I left work, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket: a text message from Karel. We got the spot! We can't move in until June 1st, but still, clean, owner-occupied, huge closets, and a roof deck. You can't get much better in Brooklyn. Of course, hello kitty will inhabit a place of honor.

And that, my friends, is how we finally managed to procure an apartment in New York City.



* I mention his religion only because the physical juxtaposition was incredibly amusing: the long overcoat, the top hat, the curls framing his face... And then the bluetooth earpiece. It just didn't jive easily perceptually.