(in no particular order)
- It's not mine.
- Carrying groceries - this sucks especially if you live on, say, the third floor. Carrying them from either the garage or the front street is insane. Especially if it's a bigger trip from the store. However, I am wonder woman and determinedly carry all of my bags in one trip every time, even to the expense of all of my muscles.
- White walls - Boring! I guess you can paint the walls if you want (at least here) but you need to paint them back before you leave to the oh-so-creative white that was here when you started.
- No dogs - This one sucks. Some places let them (under 25lbs.) and others don't. Ours doesn't. Boo. They do allow cats though, but who cares?! ;)
- Noise - I'll say it - I'm noisy. I know that. I love my music LOUD and BUMPING. I can't help it, it's the way I'm wired. I do, however, try to be respectful of my neighbors and don't play it late at night or early in the morning. I like to be reasonable. However, not all of my neighbors feel the same. Loud, bass bumping music all night long sucks. You can't sleep through that.
- It's not mine.
- No barbeques - at my least at my apt, there is no place for an outside party. There sorta is, but it's not private enough - it's like way open in the backyard, which I don't enjoy. No one ever uses it except banana-hammock guy to work on his tan.
- Hotel smell - I think the hallway of our building smells like a hotel. Not a good hotel, but a sweaty, dead air hotel. I don't like that.
- Receiving packages - Both J and I have experienced not receiving packages b/c the FedEx guy couldn't get it or whatever. Dah. How is this my fault? It's not my fault we don't have a landline so you can call upstairs. I don't even know where there's a jack for that here ... maybe I should look .... but still. They could easily replace the lousy phone system with a buzzer system. So much easier .. "Oh, I need Apt F 22 - oh, here's the button .... buzzzzzzzz ...... [clicked open] ....." See how easy that was?! And it solved the problem of me having to come down 3 flights of stairs to receive visitors for my awesome parties.
- Laundry - Horrid. Prices are insane. And there's usually a line. Carrying laundry up and down a few flights of stairs isn't cool either. Not to mention the super small size of the washer. Whereas at home, all the clothes I could fit into one load - here I have to cut it in half. BLAH! I cannot wait for the day when I don't have to collect quarters anymore.
- It's not mine.
hmm, yeah, I think there are a lot of inconveniences to apartment living, but there are also some things to be thankful about too. i.e. maintenance guy, 1100 sq ft of space, and not having to pay $400/mo for heat in the winter.
oh, and you skirt property tax issues (i think), and its fairly non-committal living... you can pick up and leave fairly easily which is nice for our generation since we're so transient.
i have an idea for our white walls... have you seen those wall stickers? i want to look for some cheap ones, maybe in august.
we pay for the maintenance guy, so it's technically not an "extra" thing. it just feels like it cause someone else is doing the work. and as for the non-committal living - I dislike it. Our generation is transient, but I don't like to be. Apt living totally feels temporary, like I'm waiting to be moved from place to place. Having a house gets rid of that - it's a place that's mine where I will stay for a while and where I can paint the walls.