Move to Larkin?

Post your comments below on why you would prefer to Move to Larkin St. or Stay on Van Buren St. Please initial the end of each comment which you feel is important to you, and order them relative to each other that you have initialed - top (most significant) to bottom (least significant). Hopefully this will expose all considerations to be made and make for a sound decision we can all comfortable with. Also please initial the “Edit Summary” before saving!

Google map: Van Buren to Larkin House

$1850/month for 3 bedroom

• Grounded outlets, likely 2 per room (bw)
• Washer and Dryer hookups (bw)
• AMAZING (kb) Ocean view (bw)
• Heating vents in the bedrooms, as opposed to two in the whole house (kb)
• working fireplace; burn some wood and decrease your heating costs; entertain cute girl/boys and snuggle up by the fireplace (kb)
• comparable amounts of storage space to Van Buren (kb)
• cabinets that actually shut (kb)
• better maintained overall (kb)
• comparable location to Van Buren - Brian, aren’t you a RUNNER? :p (kb)

$1800/month for 3 bedroom, $2000/month if 4th roommie

• “Open Lease” - we can move anytime we want with 1 month notice (bw)
• Already settled, no hassle of moving (bw)
• Plenty of parking across the street (bw)
• Water paid for [$50/month estimated] (bw)
• 4th “buffer” room drastically cuts the rent, easy to “add” another roommie (bw)
• Close walk to Safeway, church, downtown [Larkin is 2x dist] (bw)

Feel free to put other comments and concerns here:

• Ants? - unknown at Larkin, no longer much of a problem
• Roommates during internship (Summer/Ed, Fall?/Brian)
  • Easy to find summer MIIS students?
• Lease application
• Kathleen wants to move from this house

unless we find a fourth roommate for when Mario leaves,the extra cost of the other house is minimal. The only difference is paying for water and a mere $50 more per month. Yet, when you factor in the additional cost for laundry that we each incur ($2/wash per load at some places and $0.25 for ten minutes in the dryer plus gas costs to and from) and also factor in the hassles and additional time (think about the decreased multi-tasking ability of a laundromat - at home you can do homework, cook dinner, watch tv, etc.)

Things to consider if I move on my own:

• you’ll need to find someone to replace me. I’ll do whatever I can to help you with finding a roommate, but all I’m entitled to do is to put in a month’s notice. Landlord’s don’t tend to care from where the money comes as long as it’s there on time and in the full amount ($2000/4 people; $1800/3 people)
• the majority of the furniture, dishes, pots and pans are mine and will be coming with me. These items are indeed easily replaced but not without incurring costs and hassles.

As far as finding replacement roommates for when Ed and Brian are on internship, here’s the deal. MIIS does indeed get SUMMER language students in and looks to help these students find housing that meets their needs (cost, distance to campus, etc.). Here’s how it works. If you have a FURNISHED room available to rent, you notify the housing office at MIIS. They put it on a list that they make available to these students and the students pay you the rent. They do this both to help out current MIIS students that need to sublet their places while they’re doing internships as well as for the incoming students (who may or may not be staying for a degree program - some just come for the language instruction). So, it is by no means guaranteed that you will find someone to sublet. Keep in mind that you are competing with all the other MIIS students that wish to sublet their apartments. I’m not sure what you boys are planning on doing - paying rent while you’re away on internship; moving out of the house and finding new housing upon your return, etc. but we need to discuss this further.

I’ll go with whatever because obviously I’m gonna leave soon. Just don’t leave suddenly without telling me. I need time to move my stuff out and find storage.