Adventures in Apartment Shopping

A few weeks ago I posted about my woes in living in an apartment building with no elevator. Well, we're hoping to remedy this by moving to a different apartment in the next few weeks. We're looking for something very specific, and an elevator tops our list of "must haves."

Zach and I spent an hour or so yesterday driving around several neighborhoods and venturing into different realtors' offices. When we stepped into one realtor's office we were warmly greeted and asked to sit. The realtor, a 50-some-odd year old man, asked us what we were looking for and in our best Turkish we described our ideal apartment.  The man's eyes lit up and his arms started waving and moving as he excitedly described a listing he had. The words "magical," "luxury," and "great place for children to play," flowed out of his mouth. He was really selling the place and it sounded like a jackpot!! As Zach and I drove over to the apartment we joked that his description made it sound like we were heading to Disneyland.  Sure enough, we pulled up to a curb and straight ahead of us was a gorgeous building with a large, top-floor apartment that doted a sign saying, "Luxury Apartment." Our hopes were crushed, however, when we stepped out of the car and saw the realtor heading toward a different building. I looked up to my left and saw a small sign that said, "For Rent." It was dangling from a balcony that looked like it was crumbling little by little.  We headed into the building and climbed the stairs (no elevator) to the top floor. We entered the apartment and were immediately greeted with the stench of Turkish toilet (it's hard to explain the stench of Turkish toilets but all these "squatty potties" have a distinct smell). We quickly toured the odd layout of the dirty first floor. We then climbed a second set of stairs (it was a duplex) and that's when it started to get really ridiculous. There were feathers and bird poop EVERYWHERE; on the toilet, on the floors, in the cabinets. It looked like 50 pigeons had been trapped in there for the last year. The realtor took us out to the balcony, pointed and said, "Look at this great view and great area for kids to play." We looked out to see a mosque's mineret with a speaker pointed straight at us (read: LOUD) and an empty lot, that had brownish/yellowish grass clumps, below us.  Actually, it wasn't TOTALLY empty as there were bottles, plastic bags, and other hazards scattered throughout the area.  He looked at us with his best "excited expression" and asked, "So what do you think? It's nice, isn't it?" I was so thankful that the people with us (two realtors and the owner of the apartment) didn't speak English because I had to consult with Zach.  "How are we going to get out of this one without being rude?" I asked.  "It doesn't have an elevator so it won't work for us," Zach said to the realtor and company. We headed out of the apartment as quickly as possible and were barely in the car before the sarcastic comments started coming. As we drove away Zach chuckled out, "So much for Disneyland."