Apartment Hunting with Dave

My big brother Dave just took a job in Hastings, Nebraska. Nope, he’s not crazy. He’s just building his resume to get a hospital research job in Alaska. After graduating in pharmacology from UMKC in 2009, he stayed on for a year, taking a job in their drug information center. After completing that in 2011, he began the job search, with his sights set on Alaska (he cannot wait to ‘move back home.’ And WE can’t wait to visit him there once he does!) 

Anyway, the research hospitals up in AK all wanted the one thing he didn’t have…experience.  After a short interim bill-paying employment with Walgreen’s, he decided to take a pay cut and move to Hastings, since the job gave him the necessary experience to achieve his ultimate goal. 

In early January, my Mom and I joined him in KC and then traveled on to Hastings, a small town of about 30,000 in the middle of Nebraska in order to spend a day house-hunting. It was a pleasant little place, albeit without a mall or performance venue, which means I can’t live there. It actually reminded me a lot of Richard’s hometown, Ottumwa, IA. 

Dave had been working double shifts all week, so I spent the drive from STL to KC on the phone with the Hastings classifieds in front of me (one page only). I set up appts to see every apartment for rent that was listed, for everyone who answered the phone. Dave already had some viewings set up with a realtor recommended by his employer. We arrived late Thursday night. 

By 8 am Friday Mom, Dave and I were off and running, seeing about 3 apartments an hour.  Most of them were ABYSMAL.  Yikes! Scary! The nicer ones were, obviously, the more expensive.  Unfortunately, Dave lived in a pretty yikes scary place in KC, so his rent was really low for KC.  The same amount of cash would have got him a much nicer place in Hastings, but with the pay cut we were trying to save money on living expenses.

Each apartment was subjected to discussion and analysis, some scientific, some not so scientific.  Dave sat down in the bathtubs to make sure they were long enough for him to have a relaxing soak. I sniffed my way around the nooks and crannies like a customs dog, on the lookout for offensive odors and suspicious stains. Mom poked underneath all the cupboards.  The three of us could go thru an apartment in under 10 minutes.  

 

Finally around noon one of the last possibilities was actually perfect!  It was small, with just one bedroom and a tiny kitchen. But Dave was basically only living in one room of his current, larger apartment.  The kitchen was an issue since he spends so much of his time slaving over the hot stove…not.  He might occasionally use it to boil water, I think.  But most importantly of all it was CLEAN, and easy to move into (aka, the center apartment of a one-story tri-plex vs. up several flights of narrow stairs like others we had seen). Dave wanted to make sure it was someplace we would consider staying over/visiting, and we assured him it was. (His KC apt, not so much).  It was super close to the railroad tracks, but with the kind of music Dave likes to listen to at the level Dave likes to play it….let’s just say he’s unlikely to notice that. Although we had to reassure Mom that the ‘undesirable element’ of people’ (bums, vagabonds, railcar riders) who might ‘hang around the railroad tracks’ was an issue of concern from a bygone era.

Dave's new apartment from the front

 All in all it was a fun and productive road-trip. Dad and James helped Dave move in over the weekend of Jan 21^st, and now all it needs is me to come and help decorate! Hopefully soon, lol! So far he says he likes Hastings, ok, and is excited about working 7 on 7 off shifts, b/c that will give him lots of time to go back to KC, see his friends and in general have a life. A non-Hastings life, that is. And, funnily enough, we might actually see him MORE in Hastings than in KC, because it is UBER conveniently located almost exactly halfway between STL and Salt Lake City, 15 minutes of I-80. No more 24 hr. driving marathons!