Reports From My Nanocosm

Oh man, oh man. A civil jury ruled in favor of logging protesters today who had their eyes swabbed with pepper spray by the Humboldt County Sheriff and Eureka Police Department. They were each awarded $1. The police videotaped themselves doing it.

I don’t know about you, but I think that defines excessive force. I hope those officers were fired. Even if the protesters were trespassing, that doesn’t give police the right to needlessly harm them in that way. Pepper spray is nasty stuff.

If a landlord gives away an ipod when a lease is signed, doesn’t that mean they’re charging too much? I’d rather have a lower, more reasonable rent than get a freebie I can buy with my savings.

We’re moving back to the Bay Area and are in the process of looking for apartment.

The rental market is very different from what it was in 1999 when we first moved up for our jobs. Then, the few vacant apartments were either super expensive or seriously lacked redeeming qualities. Wow, how I felt desperate to find a place. Not the case this time around. Now, many of the nice one bedrooms that were once over $1,400 are down under $1,000. And, it appears it has gotten harder for landlords to find tenants to rent many apartments. I’ve been watching Craigslist the past few weeks and have been surprised by the number of landlords offering move-in specials, waiving credit checks, asking for small deposits and making pleas for tenants to view their places.  We were up this past week looking around and couldn’t help but notice that every block with apartments in certain areas of the South Bay has at least one sign out advertising an opening.

Another thing we noticed is that landlords aren’t sure what rent they should charge; asking prices are all over the board with no rhyme or reason. For example, one complex in Mountain View is asking $1095 for a junior one bedroom but a similar one a block down is asking $900 for a junior one bedroom. 

That all bodes well for renters like us. We’re playing our own version of Let’s Make a Deal, looking at apartments priced above our price range and asking landlords to lower the rent. Most seem to be willing to play along though others are offended we’d even try. We may end up with an apartment this week, though it wouldn’t be armageddon if we don’t.  We’ll just go back up in a couple more weeks to play another round of Let’s Make an Apartment Deal. 

I recommend anyone else looking for an apartment in Santa Clara county to also play along. We’ll collectively lower rents for the area. They are still overly inflated.

I’m wondering when SBC will get a clue and let me
have DSL without home phone service. It is almost as lame as extorting
28 cents from me each month so I’m not listed in the phone book; “Pay
us money, or else!”

Verizon announced
today that they will offer “naked” DSL in the NorthEast. No bundle
required for some of their customers in that area. According to the AP,
Qwest already offers that service in Denver. Well, the minute it
becomes available to me, I’ll drop my SBC phone and DSL service (and my
$10 discount) to make the switch. $35 bucks is much better than $50.
And I may never go back, for principle alone.  

Check this locator tool out if you’re looking for a place to rent.

http://216.92.212.16/housing/

Uses Gmaps, it more intuitivelyfinds apartments based on location
rather the normal list scanning. I know I’ll be using it to find my
next apartment.

I stayed at my sister’s house last night, 20 miles south of Denver. It started snowing sideways about 4:30 this morning and didn’t let up all day. By the time I left at 7 this evening they had about 2.5 feet which is the biggest snowfall they’ve seen this season.  Living in temperate California and avoiding the mountains during winter, this has been an interesting day for me. Even went around her neighborhood on a snowmobile.

It is still snowing in Denver.

Time to get rid of the Patriot Act!