After many months of talk about moving to California, the day had finally come (and it's already been over a week). Even though the original plan was for me to head south the week of January 9th, I honestly didn't think it was going to happen anytime soon as the paperwork required didn't look to be anywhere in the picture. But it did arrive on the 3rd and the ball started rolling really fast after that and the next thing I knew I was on a plane.
Thursday was my first day of work in my new role and got off to a pretty slow start but I wasn't going to complain as I knew it wouldn't be long before that changed. Friday I headed to the Social Security office to see about getting a number. Basically you can't do a whole lot without that all important number. I was at the office about 20 minutes before it opened and there was about 20 people already lined up. This didn't bode well. Once inside the waiting room filled up very fast but on the plus side they seemed to be pretty organized and I was able to see one of the agents (or whatever they are called) within a half hour. The bad news: they can't process anything until you've been in the country for 10 days. Without a social security number, you can't get a driver's license, open a bank account, lease a vehicle and it may make leasing an apartment difficult as well. Sigh...
Saturday was geared for apartment hunting. When I had visited in December I had done some preliminary "investigating" of apartment complexes that looked promising on the internet and had determined that either Burbank or Arcadia were the areas I wanted to focus on. The plan was to hopefully find a 2 bedroom cause those of you that know me know how much "stuff" I have. The first place I looked at was Scott Villa Apartments. They had a couple of units opening up in February - 1 2-bedroom and 1 1-bedroom with a loft. I really liked the 1 bedroom - was on the top floor, had high ceilings, was quite bright, had in-suite laundry and two large balconies. The complex looks to be well maintained - has swimming pool, spa, fitness room and a fire pit. The day looked promising. I then checked out a few other units. Both were nice but they didn't have the in-suite laundry which surprisingly became more important the more I thought about it. My biggest concern with the whole apartment search was that they would be able to access my credit history and they all wanted 3 years of rental history. One of the complexes even suggested that while this could be a problem, perhaps I could get a coworker with the relevant US history to cosign my lease. Can you imagine? I would be absolutely mortified - I would have a hard enough time asking a family member to do so let alone someone I've only known for 3 days. Scratch that one off the list. By the end of the day I had decided that the first one was the one to go with but wanted to give it a couple of days before committing. (of course, this runs the risk that someone could step in meanwhile I rent the unit I was interested in). But when I checked Monday evening the unit was still available and the rest of the process went pretty smoothly. So as of Feb 11 I will have a home. Hopefully sometime the following week my stuff will arrive. (I was thinking back to my first apartment that I rented and when I first moved into that apartment I had a bed, dresser and a 13" tv... nearly 20 years later and I won't even have that when I first move it :) )
After checking out apartments I wanted to see what I could do about a vehicle. Similar issues... you need a social security number and a residence, etc. before they can lease me a vehicle. Sigh... the good news I think I've decided on the Mazda 3.
The rest of the week was rather uneventful. I've been doing a lot of driving around just to orient myself. I've done more shopping in the past week than I probably do in 3 months (not that I've bought anything as I don't want to have to store & then move it). It's more checking out what's what, and figuring out what I will need once I get into the apartment as I cleaned out quite abit of stuff when I was packing. My other "adventure" was visiting the local laundromat. This definitely reinforced my decision to go with the apartment with in-suite laundry.
The lesson of this week: Patience
No comments:
Post a Comment