The Durocher Family: Day 4: Speed Bump (Thursday)

We woke up excited to sign for an apartment and live in the same building as another couple. Perfect location, street is beautiful, green shrubs on the grounds, close proximity to another couple working from our school, has a balcony, and a great price.

The four of us go in together with our school volunteer, Pat (she is AMAZING), our local realtor, and Ramadan (also AMAZING) to meet the landlord to sign the lease. Things at first seemed good but then price was being explained for the rent and boab (your building assistant) fee. But then he added on an outrageous maintenance fee. Our school volunteer was immediately fighting for us because no one in our town pays a maintenance fee. Even the realtor had said this fee isn't normal here in Egypt. Pat went to battle for us to try to get that fee taken off or even cut in half (we were already getting a good deal for the rent) but unfortunately, the landlord got upset and after relooking at the apartments, he immediately decided that we had no deal and that "he had them rented" now by someone else.

BAM! We fell frustrated at first but realized, it happened for a good reason because he showed his true colors. We started back at square one. Back to apartment hunting. Meanwhile, most of the other staff members had already signed their apartment lease. We're feeling a little behind even though school leaders kept reassuring us that we have all the time we need.

Luckily the next apartment we looked at was the perfect one for the couple we were searching with. They fell in love with it. Meanwhile, Dereck and I recontemplated our previous "contendors" and struck out the ones in terrible locations and decided on one that would work. The only downside, it looks extremely girly with pink, pink, and more pink. The good parts: Great location, perfect size for us, the kitchen was US style such that it has an open concept. So, we started negotiating a price. Got it down a little bit. Perfect! Now to seal the deal. The owner was kind of a pain (lives abroad but our realtor kept speaking with him on the phone) about particulars. Such as the 2nd bedroom is composed of so many Winnie the Pooh items that we can't touch/change. He plans on living in the place again and since his wife designed the whole apartment, we can't paint the walls, take down the Winnie the Pooh wallpaper or other modifications. This frustrated us in the process but have since become okay with it because the place is the right size, location, amazing looking kitchen and has more modern furniture (instead of the Gody looking furniture in most other apartments).

Oh, and by the way, guess who called our realtor when we were signing our lease? The landlord from this morning who said we had no deal. Ha ha! He kept asking if we were coming back (Hmmmm, what happened to having it rented for a higher price, you said??). Our realtor told him that both couples signed a lease for a different place already. We all had a good laugh about how he's feeling what we felt earlier.

Without further ado, here are pictures for your to imagine our Pepto Bismol apartment based on first sight.

The Entrance to the complex

Stairway entrance to apartments - Based on the 30 apartments we had seen in the last 3 days, this stairwell is really clean comparatively speaking although in the US, it probably wouldn't be.

Here's a little bit of Egyptian information. Back in the states what is considered the 1st floor is considered the Ground Floor here. Thus what is considered the 2nd floor in the states is where the Egyptians start the 1st floor then 2nd floor and so on.