A few days ago ‘les saw an ad at her school for an apartment for rent. The posting had been up for al little while but we figured that we’d see if the landlord dude had an apartment available still. We called and emailed, but I didn’t hear back from him for about a day. He emailed and said that he’d rented the place advertised but had two other apartments still for rent and can we come see them tonight?
I was all prepared for them to be outside of town because they were renting for not a whole lot in comparison to the other places we had been looking at. But it turns out that they’re actually in the very center of town. The building is next door to a record shop, about a block from an English pub (which brews it’s own beer?) and maybe half a block from a coffeeshop.
Not only that but the apartments were very, very nice. There were two for rent in the building. The one on the lower level is a fully furnished one bedroom. It has an odd little layout with the living-room in front, then the bedroom, then the kitchen, and then the shower. And like a surprising number of apartments in the Den Haag, the toilet is outside the apartment, across the hall. Seriously, I’ve seen this layout in several apartments and I have no idea what the deal is. The toilet and sometimes the shower (which are almost always in different closets, by the way) are located out in the hall even though you aren’t sharing them. I’ve seen a few places like this one where there’s only one apartment per floor but the bathroom is still out in the hallway. I guess it’s a holdover from when there wasn’t indoor plumbing. The funny thing is that all Dutch apartments have the toilet closet layout, in or out of the apartment proper. I guess they all just really like peeing in tiny, tiny coat closets.
The other apartment was a huge split level deal on the top of the building. It has an attic bedroom that you have to take a ladder to get to. The downstairs part is large living room that’s sorta split in half, and then a decently sized kitchen and a nice balcony. We’d originally looked at hoping that there would be space for a roommate, but any room that you’d make for an extra person wouldn’t truly be separated from the living-room so no one living there would have any privacy at all.
The price for the top floor would have been fine with a roommate, but without it was a little bit too much for us. We told the landlord that we really liked the place and would be happy to take it if he could drop the price. We ended up negotiating for about 10 Euros more than the bottom floor and getting a few pieces of furniture to boot.
Both of the apartments had been looked at by other people right before us. They were somewhat interested and the landlord was waiting to hear back from them before offering up either. We got an SMS last night from him saying that one of the apartments is ours if we want it, but I don’t know which one it is. I’d be happy with either one, although the stairs in the place are itty-bitty and I don’t know how one moves furniture into the building. I guess you do the Paris-style moving thing where you hire a truck with a huge ladder and get everything in and out via the front windows. I’m sure moving via pallet-on-a-ladder is common elsewhere, but I’d never seen it before I lived in Paris. Because I’m a small town girl, don’t you know.
Anyway, we have a place. I think. As of this writing, ‘les still needs to contact the landlord guy. But I’m feeling positive about it. We’re looking at another apartment in a different part of town this afternoon as well. Hopefully I’ll have some sort of rental agreement in hand by Monday. Wish me luck.
