This year, finding a furnished apartment was much more difficult than past years. Whether it’s the “end of the pandemic” or the housing crisis or some other reason, it was not easy to find a furnished apartment that would be willing to give us a 5-month lease. Prices in Rosemont/Le-Petit-Patrie (last-year’s neighborhood) were out of our range. We ended up finding a longer-term AirBnB back near The Gay Village — our neighborhood from 2022. It didn’t meet all of our desires, but we were running out of options.
Upon arrival, we found the apartment to be significantly grottier than expected. It was pretty filthy inside, the vacuum didn’t work, and, as we have discovered in the past, what constitutes “furnished” is wildly variable. We needed to get a lot of basics like toilet paper or sponges for the sink. Then there are things where the definition is a matter of opinion, like “high-speed internet” which caps out at 45/10Mbits — for a lot of folks, that’s high speed, but for someone in IT, that’s barely sufficient.
After some communications, the landlord sent a cleaner who spent four or five hours and got the place closer to acceptable. Manon did a dozen loads of laundry to get the bedding and towels clean. We did a few sorties to the market, and stocked up on essentials. It’s starting to be more habitable.
While the location’s not bad, the apartment’s a third-floor walkup (yup, that’s 35 steps) which made for an adventure trying to get our heavier luggage into the place. Bringing up groceries will continue to be a good workout. The place is pretty quiet so far, which is a nice contrast from last year’s traffic noise.
After work on Thursday, I went on walk to our mailbox. That was enough to lift my mood. Montreal is a ridiculously photogenic city.
