Kit Kat Apartment Hope

Kit Kat looked again at an apartment complex where the monthly rent was $1764 for a 1 bedroom plus den. That price was obviously too high. However they had a similar but bigger unit coming available in a few months. That unit was going for $1592 now. It seemed like a steal. Kit Kat applied on her own and got accepted. She already signed a lease.

This unit has one bedroom. It has a bathroom with access from the bedroom and the hall. There is a den which is essentially a second bedroom. There is a balcony with its own storage shed. The kitchen is nice but very narrow. There are full size washer and dryer in a closet off the kitchen. There is some nice storage.

So now Kit Kat just has to wait until the current tenant leaves the apartment. That will take about two months, including the complex cleaning the apartment to make it ready for Kit Kat. She has already started making purchases for the new apartment. A new bed got delivered this morning while Kit Kat was at work. I had them bring it into our library for safe keeping.

If all goes as planned, Kit Kat will be moving out in two months into her own apartment. A bit sad for us parents. But overall good times for Kit Kat. Strangely enough, Little Kat is excited too. He seems to think that Kit Kat will be able to buy a pet cat when she moves out.

Kit Kat Apartment Update

Kit Kat continued on her apartment search. She set up an appointment with a place with "lower" rent that looked good. I got busy at work. So Kit Kat brought Little Kat with her. She liked a unit and applied. They denied her because she did not make enough money. I told her I would be a guarantor to help her qualify.

I scheduled a visit to this apartment myself. The worker had a tough time opening the apartment front door. There was new carpet everywhere. The kitchen was entirely remodeled, with granite counters, and a small front load washing machine.

I asked what the price for the unit was. They told Kit Kat is was $1619 a month if she moved in at the end of the month. They told me the price would depend on move in date. I asked them what the cheapest date was. They said today, and it would be $1552 a month. I said let's do it. They told me I needed to apply. LOL wut?

Apparently they had to reopen Kit Kit's application and process my guarantor application. I told them let get going, and asked what was stopping us. They said they needed a guarantor application fee. I ran to my local bank and got a certified check for that. They said they would review it.

On the weekend, they came back and said we were approved. However they said we could move in right away for $1619 a month. I had Kit Kat ask them how we could get the $1552 rate, because she could probably qualify on her own at that rate. They said her rate was fixed based on application and tour date. I had her remind them that I just applied and toured and the price was $1552. They would not budge. So they were out.

Certificaton Renewal

Six or seven years ago, I passed an exam and got an industry certification. It seems good for certain Department of Defense contracts. The certification expires after 3 years. The last time this happened, I figured the easiest way to renew it was to take some vendor training. You need to pass the assessments that come with the training to prove you are worth to keep the certification.

Well my 3 years were up again. So I decided to do the vendor training one more time. I think the training was expanded. There were more new topics this time around. And I swear the assessments were a lot harder. It seemed like I needed to retake each assessment 3 or 4 times to pass it. You need to get 100% of the questions correct to pass.

Next time I need a better strategy. I think I might let my certification lapse, then sit for the regular certification exam again. You probably only need around 70% correct to pass that exam. I will need to go into a testing center to sit for the exam.

I do have another idea. You can earn credits to keep current. You just need to justify the credits and get them approved. You still have to pay some sort of fee to renew your cert. But at least I won't need to take all these exams all over again. So I downloaded a book on this certification. I am searching for ideas on what to research and publish to use to qualify for the next recertification.

Apartment Shopping

Kit Kat has decided she wants to move into her own apartment within the month. She has targeted the area where she and her boyfriend often eat. It is about 20 minutes north of us by highway. She requires a washer/dryer inside her unit. She optimally wants a 2 bedroom unit. However those are too expensive. She will settle for a 1 bedroom with den.

The first unit we looked at seemed a bit dated. It was a two bedroom apartment. The kitchen cabinets and appliances were tired. However the apartment had a lot of space. The layout had good feng shui. The pricing seemed high to me. They also nickel-dimed Kit Kat, even charging $40 per month for her gerbils. The overall cost seemed way too high for my liking.

The second unit seemed a lot fancier. However there was less room. And the layout of the apartment was wonky. Kit Kat did talk to a woman who was walking her dog. This may have been Kit Kat's future neighbor. I was troubled by the trash on the floor inside the apartment hallway. The unit was located close to Kit Kat's old community college.

The last unit we saw cost $200 more than the other two. Kit Kat went into the office of a woman who looked like a bustier Charli DeAmelio. Momoko had trouble keeping up with the brisk walk to the apartment. There was a lot of storage in this unit. The den seemed like a second bedroom. I thought it was strange for there to be two doors into both the bathroom and the den. In the end, the niceness did not seem to justify the high price.

We are waiting for an actual one bedroom plus den to become available at the first complex we visited. Momoko wants us to negotiate away the pet fee, since gerbils are tiny animals and most apartments only charge a pet fee for dogs or cats.