Finding an Apartment in Berlin
It was +29 on Friday and +8 on Saturday. Tell me how that works. No, don't actually, I don't care. It just makes me sad! It was good to be lazy and just do stuff around the house, though. We managed to view a few apartments (bleh) but so far no luck with finding something semi-permanent. I thought that we were going to get an apartment in Prenzlauer Berg (for a month) and it was really nice and everything seemed to be going well until: (cue rage) the person decided she wanted to charge 'extra' for having a couple instead of just one person.
The original price of the flat was 580 for the month of June. When she told us she was "worried" that two people would consume more water and electricity, we offered to bump up the rent to 600. Nope. That was clearly not high enough of an offer. She probably thought she could get 650 instead.
How much extra electricity does she think one person uses??
What annoys me about these stupid situations is that they are so. blatantly. moneygrubbing. If you are really "concerned" about the "extra consumption" what you would do is make an agreement to compare the consumption of the month you rent it out to a normal month and ask us to pay the difference. Not simply bump the rent up by 70 euros.
*grumble*
Went to see another place today, but the girl had such a huge stick up her ass that I feel like she's not going to go for the foreigners who don't have permanent residence permits.
Where are all the nice apartments in Berlin? I mean, I know where they are.. I pass by lovely flats constantly. But where are they advertised? How de we get them? How can we convince uptight Berliners to let us stay in one without them gauging us for not being German?
PS. Do NOT even get me started about cleanliness here. I don't know where the concept of Germans being clean to the point of obsession comes from because, at least in Berlin, all flats look like the last time they were cleaned was before WWII.
It is really stupid though. Whenever we go see an apartment for a takeover of a lease, there are at least 20 other people there at the same time getting applications. And then you need a buttcrapton of documentation just to apply: 3 months pay slips, a credit report, a statement from your previous landlord certifying that you don't owe back-rent, a copy of your passport. Can you say... anal retentive?
grrrr.
