A Moving Experience

You know there are times when everything seems to be going wrong and you think to yourself "if I could just catch a break...". Then, there are those times when you can't believe your good fortune and everything falls perfectly into place. Fortunately for us, we recently had the latter experience. If you know anything about apartment searching and moving in New York City, you know that it is an enormous undertaking that is stressful and nearly impossible. We experienced a lot of hardship when we first moved to the City and tried to find an apartment, which is why we've stayed put for 2 years. We ended up in a great place, but the experience nearly forced us to leave the City and give up on our adventure before it really began. So you can imagine the bittersweet feelings we had when we found out we would need to find a bigger apartment; elated for the reason, but dreading the process we were all too familiar with.

We began apartment searching in September. Our lease was not up until the end of December, but when you're searching for the perfect place, you have to sort through a lot of dumps before you find it. It is appalling what some landlords are charging in rent for disgusting apartments. For nearly three solid months, we looked at apartment listings, set-up appointments and viewed apartments, and were constantly lied to and jerked around by brokers...all to no avail (I have an intense disdain for all brokers!). We were beginning to lose hope that there was a place for our new family to live. We had hoped to have a new place secured by Thanksgiving because we needed to inform our current landlord by December 1st if we would indeed be moving. If we didn't have a place to go, we would have to re-sign our lease, which would open us up to a world of problems that I won't even go into.

The Tuesday evening before Thanksgiving, we had two appointments to view apartments. Both seemed promising, but apartment listings are frequently misrepresented. The first was actually an apartment we had already seen back in October, but at the time could not afford the rent. It was fully renovated, had a second bedroom and was located in a great building in a great location, but was slightly smaller than our current place. Because of the market condition, the landlord had slashed the rent price, making it affordable for us. After viewing it for the second time and taking some measurements, we determined that it could definitely work, but we wanted to view the second apartment before making our decision.

The listing for the second apartment seemed too good to be true, which means it probably was. It was almost as large as our old house in Greenville, had 2 full bedrooms and 2 full baths with great building amenities, and the rent had been slashed as well due to the failing economy. So imagine our disappointment when the broker opened the door and we immediately caught a whiff of sewage. As we walked further into the apartment towards the bathrooms, the smell intensified to the point I almost started gagging. The broker indicated that this probably was a recurring problem and not an easy fix. Being the engineers that we are, Andy and I checked behind the plumbing fixtures to see if work had previously been done and sure enough, it was evident that plumbing was definitely an issue in the past. We could barely stand the foul smell emanating from the toilets and showers. As this was about strike number 50 in the realm of apartment hunting, we decided to go for the other apartment. The broker indicated we could sign the lease December 1st, just in time.

Oh if only it were that easy to move into an apartment! Once we decided on the apartment, there is a ludicrous application and approval process in order to actually "get" the apartment. You basically have to give the rights to your first born child to be approved, which in our case is no laughing matter. It took us about 2 hours to fill out all of the required application materials and provide copies of all of the pertinent background information. In order to sign the lease Dec 1, we had to get the application package submitted the Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving (which was really fun because I had a flight to SC at 6:30am and Andy had to work, so our morning started at 3:30am!).

Fast forward to Wednesday afternoon - I got a message on my blackberry from the broker that we were approved! Ya-Hoo...AND it was literally the day before Thanksgiving, exactly what we wanted. This is where everything really started to fall into place. We signed the new lease on Dec 1, as planned, and also let our old landlord know that we'd found a new place. To our surprise, since we had paid a security deposit 2 years ago, he applied the deposit to what we would have owed for the last month's rent (normally this isn't returned until after you leave an apartment). This means we had the entire month of December to move out of our old apartment and into the new one without paying double rent. Again, if you know anything about moving in the City, you know this is a blessing. It is so hard to move all of your belongings around in this City. We definitely wanted to get moved in by Dec 15, though, because we wanted to be able to enjoy the Christmas season.

So how does this deal get any sweeter? Well, the landlord listed our apartment and indicated that if he found a new tenant to move in Dec 15th, he would refund us half a month's rent. What?! That is unheard of. This gave us extra incentive to pack and move quickly so he could show the apartment.

Here comes the next piece falling into place. We needed to hire movers this time around because I am not able to help as much as I normally would. We moved ourselves entirely to the City, but knew we could not manage this time. Andy called around to a few places and the quotes were outrageous. Seriously, we're moving 7 blocks away and you're going to charge me an arm AND a leg? Frustrated, I looked up movers on our church’s classified listings and found a contact for a mover. Andy called and they were able to provide the services for less than half of the other movers...amazing. The bonus is, since we went through the church who uses this service as a means to provide people with jobs, we were supporting a few guys who needed some work.

So things are going rather well; we're moving into our new place on Saturday the 6th and I take a break to check my email. We had considered selling the refrigerator that came with our apartment and buying a bigger one to accommodate our growing family, but the timing would have to be perfect for it to work. I had already found one that I wanted on Craigslist, and had posted an ad for ours on Craigslist. When I checked my email, I had a message from a woman who was very interested in the fridge and basically said if I was around, she was ready to come pick it up. So I called the guy from the listing of the fridge I wanted, and he says, “yea, come pick it up tonight"...I said it'd have to be perfect timing, right? We were also able to negotiate the price of the fridge we wanted to buy so that we would break even with the fridge we were selling. So the woman came over to our new apartment, loved the fridge (and coincidentally was in dire need of a fridge, and we were offering it at a ridiculously low price for a brand new appliance) and handed over the cash. We hopped in our car, drove to Chelsea and handed the same cash to the seller for our fridge. Within a few hours time, we had sold and moved our fridge out and replaced it with a better, bigger fridge. Again, this kind of timing is unheard of in this City...so many people are out to cheat and take advantage of other people, so the fact that both of these transactions actually worked out is a miracle in itself.

Elated with our new purchase, we now had one problem... getting it from the blazer (which it fit in by only 1/2 inch) into the new apartment. I could not be a lot of help for the heaving lifting and this thing was heavy. Andy called around to a few friends, but no one was available to help. Andy decided to just go for it and try to get the fridge in solo. To top it off, it started snowing and it was now about 8 o'clock at night. I pulled up to the side of the building and Andy started to unload it...he can't even get it out of the blazer. Just then, two people walk by (a husband and a wife on their way home from dinner), and the husband says "hey man, you need a hand with that?". Andy says yes, he'd really appreciate some help getting it out of the car. The two of them wrestle with it and finally get it loaded onto the handtruck and tied down. They are about to walk away, and the man says, "hey, you look like you could really use some more help, let me help you get it into your building". He ends up helping Andy get the fridge down the entrance stairs, into the elevator and all the way into our apartment. We are stunned at the generosity of perfect strangers. While the men are moving, the woman and I are talking and it turns out we all have a lot on common, which was kind of cool. So we profusely thank them for their help and offer to take them out one night as a token of gratitude. Who would have thought we'd be in the right place at the right time for those two generous people to be walking by right when Andy needed them. Again, New Yorkers are so narcissistic that it is unheard of for someone to even look you in the eye, much less offer to help. We simply can't believe all that has fallen perfectly into place.

The icing on the cake? Our landlord did find tenants to move in Dec 15th, so we'll be getting half a month's rent back. We are both so truly blessed by all that God has provided for us. He had a perfect plan for all of these pieces to fall together so we could have the right place for our new family. People say that God does not perform miracles anymore...and while he doesn't raise the dead or turn water into wine, modern day miracles can be found in everyday circumstances like ours. Especially in New York, which is a great City but can be exceedingly harsh, we are particularly in awe of His guidance and protection. This truly was a moving experience for the Goodwins.