Challenging Apartment Viewings Experience

Apartment Viewings

Yesterday, we went to two apartment viewings, and both seemed very promising.

In the morning, we visited a two-bedroom, two-story apartment with a garden. Unfortunately, the garden turned out to be quite “holey”—I wouldn’t even feel comfortable letting Lucy out there. What’s the point of a garden like that? Not to mention, we encountered a fox when we got there, and I suspect it wasn’t a coincidence—I actually found fox dens in the garden. I'm almost 100% sure they live there. For me, that’s a bonus; I’d even be willing to pay extra to share my space with foxes! 😊

However, the carpets on the second floor were a drawback (we thought we could overlook them if the apartment dazzled us), along with the complex transport accessibility.

The second apartment was also disappointing. The photos showed beautiful old wooden floors, but in reality, we found cheap, new laminate. The large balcony was certainly a highlight, but the house faced the main road, and it was really noisy.

To make matters worse, the realtor was quite unpleasant in person (I actually wrote about him yesterday). He started pressuring us about the deposit. But we've been through this before and know better—we had a detailed discussion about our previous experience. My husband firmly stated that we wouldn’t pay any deposit at this stage. To top it off, this guy even called me today, Saturday, at 9 AM!

I also realized yesterday how accustomed I've become to feeling completely safe living in a building with a concierge on the 9th floor. In Abu Dhabi, we lived on the 48th floor, and in Yerevan, on the 5th without an elevator. It was impossible for anyone to break into our apartment without notice; you could hear the delivery guys and all our friends from the fourth floor through a closed door.

I thought I really wanted a ground floor apartment, but the first one we saw just didn’t feel safe at all. The flimsy wooden door with glass inserts facing the garden left me daydreaming about potential issues.

The search continues!