I didn't realize it at the time, but this would be the 11th and final apartment I would have in San Diego. This meant I averaged one apartment for each year I lived there.
I was getting at the end of my rope in looking for a roommate to move in with. Abed and Pesd had already found their own place and were getting ready to move in at the end of February. After going through roommate ads and dealing with possible rents that started at $350 and then went all the way up to about $450, I decided my best course of action, if I was going to spend that much money every month, was to find my own place, probably a studio apartment.
I managed to find a listing at a property management company I had dealt with before. They had a studio for $500 a month in the South Park area. I went to check it out. It was part of a building that had been a duplex. It was renovated and split up into five units. there were two units downstairs and three upstairs. One unit had stairs leading up to it indoors from the front. The other two upper level units had external stairs.
When I first visited the apartment, I found the stairs were rather rickety at the top. There were two doors at the time, right next to each other. One door lead to the living room and the other to the kitchen, but they were right next to each other. (The photograph above shows that they replaced the kitchen door with a wall and a window. Also, the gate in the photo that leads to the stairs was not there before.) Inside, I saw there were two refrigerators, a large one and a small one. I wondered why anyone in a studio apartment would need two refrigerators.
The apartment had a rather large bathroom with a full tub. The tub had eagle claws on the bottom. But there was a large metal ring where I would need to put two shower curtains. That wasn't really a problem, but I knew it wasn't going to be very spacious in the shower.
I went back to the property management company and asked a couple of questions. I asked if they were going to fix the stairs. He said they would. I also asked about the two refrigerators. He said he had just been informed about that. I told him I only needed one and he could take the large one away. He said it would be gone before I moved in. I still had to go through the credit check process and provide him with my latest two pay stubs. My monthly pay needed to be three times the amount of the rent. Fortunately, I had worked four forty-hour weeks in a row, so my paystubs actually reflected that amount. I would also need to pay the $500 rent and the $500 deposit. I had just received the cashout of my 401(k) plan from my old job, so I had the funds for that. This was one of the few times in my life that things went my way.
I moved in about a week later. They had indeed fixed the stairs, but there there still two refrigerators in the kitchen. I would have to wait another two weeks before they finally came and took the big one away.
When Fraz came to see the apartment for the first time, she saw the eagle claws and thought the place was too cool for me. She also chastised my description of the area as South Park. She said, "Fayd! You live in Golden Hill! Stop trying to sound like you live someplace hip!" However, there were banners on the next street over indicating that this was indeed South Park. I'd always expected to find the South Park signs with bumper stickers of the TV show characters on them, but I guess that was a joke that got old real quick at the time.
This was one of the best locations I'd lived in during my time in San Diego. Even though there were three liquor stores in the area, I was across the street from a church, so I wasn't concerned about crime. I actually felt like my car was safe on the street. There were also a lot of cool places to eat, including a Mexican restaurant and a couple of pizza restaurants, one of which sold giants slices for $1 each. I ate there quite often. There was also a 7-Eleven and a laundromat close-by. In addition, I was just around the corner from the famed Big Kitchen.
I only ever met two of the other residents. I recognized the woman who lived below me as an employee of the Ken Cinema. She had a boyfriend who lived around the area where my postal mailbox was. He didn't have a car and would ride the bus. I would frequently see him at her place and then over by the postal convenience center. That was always awkward. The other guy I just saw one time, but he demonstrated how the garbage and recycling cans were supposed to be put in the street. It was no one's official duty, but someone had to do it. It usually wound up being me.
One interesting thing was that I had been warned by the property management company that the apartments had a tendency to have the main breaker switch shut down electricity to all the units. When that happened, someone just needed to go to the breaker box and turn it back on. But the whole time I lived there, that never happened. I'll bet it was because of the second refrigerator that had been in my unit.
Sometimes you just don't know that you can make a positive impact just by moving in.
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