New Flat - Old Furniture

We have finally moved into our own flat here in San Francisco and oh my god did it feel good to have our own bed back. Finally a good night sleep without getting woken up at 6AM by construction work and the sun piercing your eyelids. Our new bedroom has black out curtains and it is sooo quiet. 

And I had forgotten how comfy our sofa is, with enough space for both humans and a dog on top. Now all we have to do is unpack our stuff and get settled before the Huttons come to visit for New Year Eve.

The study

The Study - best office ever!

Living room

Kitchen

Before moving in we took a trip to the local 'bed baths and beyond' shop and marvelled at the escalators for shopping trolleys. Never seen that before :-)

Apartments, Breakfast Buns and Karl the Fog

Famous Breakfast Bun

Before we moved to San Francisco we were warned that it would be really difficult to find an apartment. Firstly because its not that many apartments available in the areas we like, secondly because we have a dog, and thirdly because landlords like to see tenants' credit score (something that takes longer than one month to build up!).

So we did some research and found out that it would be a good idea to prepare an info 'pack', with all our financial info and a cover letter introducing ourselves. In the letter we wrote about our recent move, included a paragraph about the dog explaining what a top specimen of a pooch he is, and we even put a little family photograph in there with the three of us. 

Open House Viewings and Interviews

Chased by the famous fog

Then we went to a couple of viewings, some of which were what's called an 'open house'. Open house is usually an hour in the weekend when all prospective tenants can come and see the flat, ask any questions they might have and get interviewed by the landlord in front of everyone else. 

We went to one viewing where there must have been twenty other people standing around as we discussed our income and why we haven't had time to build a credit score yet with the landlord - awkward to say the least!

Turns out we must be irresistible tenants because out of the two apartments we liked and applied for - we ended up getting approved for both!

Our New Flat

The flat we picked is a modern apartment in Hayes Valley. We'll have two bedrooms and bathrooms, a small patio outdoors and a gym in the building. We're aiming to move sometime in the last week of November.

Skype?

In other news - If you haven't already got our Skype details then get in touch and we'll send them over so we can chat. Alfie talked to his younger sister Bella earlier today - although we have no idea what they were barking about they seemed to enjoy it!

Corporate Housing, Apartment Hunting and Hiding a Dog for Two Weeks

Could you hide this guy in your bag?

As you might remember, we are not overly happy with the corporate flat we were given. To be fair there's nothing wrong with the actual space itself, its nice enough but there's lots of noise from the building site outside and its a very dodgy area.

But wait there's more

As I'm writing this we've just found out that we've been staying on the pet free floor for two weeks.

Not good news.

A man knocked on our door earlier today and asked if our dog is covered in the lease. As if we'd ever consider hiding a bouncy barky pup like Alfie in a flat without permission! He's not the sort of dog you can hide in your bag and sneak past security...

Lucky for us its not our fault - we have signed a special doggie flat contract so we're good. But the people who've rented the flat out to us are in trouble. The owners of the building have decided this floor is supposed to be a pet free floor, but somehow that was never communicated to our landlords, the company who rent our flat out to us.

Lucky for our landlords, they still have another flat free in this building where dogs *are* allowed so we will move there tomorrow or the next day. We will update everyone with our new address as soon as possible when everything has been confirmed.

Which is actually awesome news because now I won't have to hoover the floors!

Frozen Sandwiches - Don't worry, didn't buy them...

Flat hunting

In other news - we thought we'd found a lovely flat in the Hayes District and the landlords had agreed to let it to us. But then we got cold feet and decided not to go for it in the end. So we're still looking.

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