In The Days Before E-Bay January 27, 2020
Posted by nrhatch in Home & Garden, Humor, Sustainable Living.trackback
My first apartment was a 2 bedroom sub-let from a friend in high school.
I rented it sight unseen without meeting my roommate-to-be or seeing the puke green shag carpet or the roach motel in the kitchen.
I paid $100 for the furniture my friend wasn’t interested in taking with her ~ a bed, a dresser, a built in “desk” made from a 2 foot section of kitchen counter, a threadbare sofa, a stained armchair, a coffee table with 3 faux marble insets (one cracked), and ample cinderblocks that could be used to build end tables, bookshelves, etc.
Come to think of it, the furniture was free ~ I paid $100 for the curtains! 😀
Aah . . . the Good Old Days!
Comments
Sorry comments are closed for this entry
Spirit Lights The Way 
The good ole days indeed! 😉
An auspicious beginning to law school, indeed. BFF and I only stayed in the apartment for the first semester ~> while I studied, he went apartment hunting and found a GREAT place for us across town. It even had a washer & dryer. Score!
Great memories!
Even happier memories from the times I lived in VA and NC. You chose a couple of stellar states!
Ah, yes. Now that my adult children are getting their first apartments, I think about those days!
My nieces/nephews have rented several places without seeing them “in person” . . . but they saw photos on line before signing on the dotted line. Since I was moving to SC (from NJ) for law school, it was easier to line something up based on what my HS friend chose to share over the phone.
Fortunately, Kim didn’t really sugar-coat it. The price tag for the furniture gave an inkling as to its worth. 😀
That’s great. Yes, it’s very different now – so much available online. It does make it easier. But I’m sure this generation will have plenty of “those were the days” stories about their first apartments. Are you a Jersey Girl? I am!
I am a Jersey Girl ~ grew up in Monmouth County. Later on, after law school, we lived in Cherry Hill (near Philly) for 8 years. How about you?
Smiling … memories from our naive past are so refreshing!
Memories often make me wish I could time travel . . . but I would NOT travel back to this particular place. The apartment BFF found for us was So Much Better. 😀
LOL! 🙂
Sure. Laugh at our season of discontent! 😛
When I married my husband he had a cinder block entertainment stand, a waterbed and one saucepan. The good ole days? Nope. Nope. And nope!
We just pretended we were “camping” . . . until we could afford to buy actual furniture.
Good thing it was a short stay! I don’t like sharing with roaches.
In the middle of the night
I turned on the kitchen light
What a shocking sight
I’d never seen a cockroach before
OMG! Those buggers covered the floor
Wall-to-wall. No room for more
We reclaimed our kitchen with a product now banned by the EPA ~> Rid A Bug! After a few nights sweeping up dead carcasses of the nasty little carpetbaggers, we were roach free!
A friend of mine had the same experience when he moved south. Wall to wall cockroaches in the middle of the night. From then on they turned on lights before venturing to the bathroom and announced themselves. Banned? Scary!
It’s been 40 years since we used Rid-A-Bug. So far, we haven’t sprouted horns. 😯
But who knows? All the little ailments we’ve experienced over the years might be attributable to that single cause!
Yes, the good ole days. May they never come again.
I lived that way for many years, and developed a poverty mentality. Even now, when I can easily afford better things, I still hesitate before pulling out my wallet.
I’m happy to pull out my wallet in exchange for something of REAL VALUE to me ~ like chocolate! I don’t spend $$’s on big ticket toys or trips to impress the Joneses or the Smiths or any other status conscious fools.
People like that don’t impress me . . . so why should I waste money to impress them?
Good point. Trying to impress others is a game that never completely succeeds. Best to save your time and money on things that impress yourself. Like chocolate, in your case.
We met someone today who was trying to “impress us” with the info/intel he chose to share. He was wasting his time. I am NOT impressed by anyone who feels the need to impress me. 😆
I also had a roommate for my first apartment. All I brought to the table was a bedroom set and some crappy living room chairs that someone had given me. They didn’t match her couch. 😀 Back in the day, we used to go looking for furniture people set out on the curb.
A decade or so ago, a good friend’s husband picked up a “brand new” $600 gas grill set out curbside on trash day because the auto ignite button was broken.
Everything else worked as long as you had a match!
What a bargain!
Quite the deal!
Looking back it is kind of funny what we considered good enough. I was grateful for every second-hand piece of furniture or hand-me-down from my mom or grandmothers. But we didn’t have Target or Ikea or many cheap goods to choose from. My first place had green shag carpeting, too. LOL! I seem to remember thinking it was cool!
This green shag carpet was on its last legs. It was worn out and needed to be torn out . . . plus it had fleas. We used the Rid-A-Bug on the fleas too. Soon they were toast. Bye bye bugs!
I was thankful to have a furnished apartment at such a low expenditure of time & money. And the roommate, Cathy, was delightful. She graduated in December and that’s when BFF decided to pull the plug on the apartment on Blossom St.
I wonder what my parents thought of my first apartment? They came for Thanksgiving that year. Mom was pissed off that I was living with BFF so I remember her reaction to that, not the furnishing. 😆
Your comment about your mom really made me laugh, Nancy. We were so young once, weren’t we? Now we are young at heart, I like to think. 🙂
So young!
And still so young inside . . . at heart.
Good old cinderblocks. I have fond memories of my first apartment. I shared it with four other girls. We were all seniors at Seattle University. Four of us were education majors, one, premed. She had to tolerate all our talk about our student-teaching experiences.
Our apartment was walking distance from campus, 2 or 3 bedrooms–I can’t remember which. It was an old building, already furnished. We had a great time. There was the day it was my turn to fix dinner, and I put a whole bulb of garlic in the casserole. They could smell it from the downstairs door.
Your place sounds a bit like mine senior year in college (before this apartment) ~ we lived in a lodge on campus, so the college provided basic dorm furniture and sofa and tables for the living area. It had 3 bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths for the 6 of us. So many fun times!
Was the meal edible? I often roast whole bulbs of garlic in foil ~ they start out pungent, become fragrant, and end with an aromatic flourish. Sort of.
Our “go to” meal was a “salad bar supper” where everyone who attended chipped in with some salad fixings, salad dressing, rolls, or dessert. Easy and fun.
What a swanky place you had there! I had folding lawn chairs in the living room, a folding table and metal chairs in the eat-in kitchen part, and milk carton crates for a chest of drawers in the bedroom. I did have a mattress on a frame which was living large for me at the time. Different time, different priorities.
Yes! . . . to the folding chairs, the folding table, and the milk carton crates used as cubby’s for clothes, albums, books, etc.
Thanks for the flashback, Ally.