Matt went walking around Seattle with his friend Dan, looking at apartments. I had texted him the address of apartments I saw a listing for online, so they strolled by. It was the last placed they walked to, and I think Matt knew right away that he had hit the jackpot.

The first thing Matt told me about the place was all of the grass surrounding the buildings. GRASS! Can you believe it? Grass surrounding an apartment building in Seattle! A building that accepts dogs! It’s an oasis in the desert for dog owners.

The office was closed by the time Matt made it there, so he made an appointment for the next weekend.  We went up on Friday to view the place.

Did I mention that there was grass? Because there was plenty of it. The apartments actually are actually five three-story brick buildings. There is a generous amount of space for grass and walkways between the buildings, and the plentiful trees and shrubbery add to the feeling of privacy. It was the sort of place I could see myself walking the dogs around.

They had a first-floor unit available and we took a look. We were pleased to see the hardwood floors and big, bright windows as soon as we walked into the unit. The kitchen had enough room for us both to move around, and just the right amount of cupboard space. No dishwasher, but a nice deep sink to wash dishes in. The bedroom fit a full-size bed comfortably and had enough closet space for the both of us. The bathroom wasn’t very large, but it was a lot more reasonable than the pink tiled one in the last unit we visited. Overall, this was the best unit we had seen, especially for the price.

We decided to go ahead and turn in our applications and put a deposit down. Since then, however, things have not exactly gone smoothly.

Matt was quite shocked to receive a call a few hours later that said he had gotten a negative review from his landlord. We were both exceedingly puzzled, because this was impossible. We had taken a lot of care to talk in-person with his landlord about our plans, and he was completely understanding. He has always been extremely friendly  and talkative with us, and often quick chats with him stretch out into long, meandering conversations.

Matt explained his confusion to the person on the phone, who was the apartment manager, not RSS. He suggested Matt call his landlord to get it cleared up. Matt immediately called his landlord and explained that they claimed he had given a negative review, which somewhat puzzled his landlord as well. His landlord said that the woman who called caught him off-guard because she didn’t even introduce herself or explain why she was calling, she just asked what he knew about Matt. He told her that Matt’s lease was up in January, but that he would be moving out in October, and I guess that’s all RSS took the time to hear and interpreted it as a negative review. They didn’t take the time to learn more about the situation. Matt relayed this information to the property manager at the new apartments and he said he would have RSS give Matt’s landlord another call.

It took over a week to get a response from RSS. They were off on Labor Day and couldn’t get a hold of Matt’s landlord because he works elsewhere during the day. (You would think they would have people working nights for this kind of situation.) Finally, they got that all sorted out, but we weren’t approved yet.

THEN they decided to try to verify Matt’s employment. (Really?! They don’t do that first?) He gave them a handful of phone numbers for all of his bosses and HR, but apparently they only want to talk to HR, so they tried to get in touch with someone in HR who was unavailable due to orientations.

Hopefully today they’ll be able to get in contact with someone and this will be over!