Living in an Apartment

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Last year, when Mai and I decided to move to Cebu to work and live there, it was the first time I was far away from my family. It was hard for my Nanay to accept that, but she accepted my decision.

It was really hard at first, but I eventually did my best to overcome being homesick. However, there were a lot of things that happened which led me and Mai back to Manila.

I never wanted to live away from my family. The thought of living alone or with friends in an apartment was just too dreadful for me. I guess it's because of horror stories I heard from my friends who've been living in apartments ever since they started working.

Back when I was still with ePLDT (Vocativ in Bonifacio Global City), I really thought of looking for apartments for rent and to live with one of my best friends, Tina, since both our homes are in Navotas City back then. Don't get me wrong, I am a very independent woman. But, I just can't take the feeling of being away from my family, especially my Nanay. So, Tina decided to live with another close friend of mine, Saji.

When we visited their apartment in Mandaluyong City, it was actually okay. I guess it really depends on who's maintaining the apartments. Saji, her life partner and her friends live there so I knew Tina was in good hands. They told me their landlady was actually quite nice and their neighbors were not difficult to live with. They were even allowed to party late at night and they didn't complain.

I wish all neighbors and landlords are like Saji's. Maybe, if we found a place like hers back when I was still thinking of renting an apartment closer to work, I might have moved out and actually lived away from my family.

I'm not really good with dealing with pesky neighbors and irresponsible landlords. Proof of that is when we rented a commercial space in Cebu for our internet cafe. The landlord was so difficult to deal with. First, they lied to us, telling us that there are a lot of kids who rent in computer shops in their area so we should expect a lot of customers coming our way. It was vacation time and we were planning to open by start of classes so we thought that the number of kids we saw coming and going our area would actually increase. Well, we found out there weren't enough for 2 computer shops in that commercial area, unlike what the landlord told us. It wasn't profitable for us to stay there. Good thing I read the terms of the lease carefully and when we decided to move out, the landlord agreed after we told him all our complaints since the start, which he didn't really address even after our numerous complaints.

I remember back when the roads here at our home in Malabon weren't fixed and cemented yet. Even on a sunny day, the roads are flooded. Residents in our area have been very patient, except for us. When Mai and I were still working in APAC Cubao, we almost decided to rent a house in Quezon City so we can avoid the hassles of commuting from the flooded areas of Malabon to work. However, we can't find an apartment suited for us. Most of the apartments we saw were either too expensive, the landlord/lady were not accommodating, or there were barely any maintenance done to them prior to being rented. I'm very particular when it comes to maintenance of the houses I live in, so we ended up enduring the flood and the transportation expenses.

Here's a video of Mai and I when we were commuting back home. You'd see the flood and people walking about. We were riding a motorcycle that uses a boat's motor, designed specially for the floods. This was taken after typhoon Chedeng hit our country.

I'm glad the roads here were cemented and paved so we're no longer suffering from floods and high transportation expenses. I'll post photos of our area here in Malabon next time so you'd see how the roads were improved after years of suffering.

I remember when we moved out of our home in Navotas, we were actually choosing between buying a house in Bulacan or here in Malabon. We chose Bulacan because we didn't want to endure the nonstop floods. While our house in Bulacan was supposedly being constructed, we had to live in an apartment near the area. We looked for an apartment big enough to accommodate the 4 of us (Mai wasn't living with us yet) and our furniture. We were forced to sell some of them to save on the mover's fees.

The apartment we rented was big and even has a front yard where our dogs got to play. However, the bathrooms and the kitchen weren't maintained. The ceiling in one of the bathrooms almost collapsed while we were there. We discovered that there were a lot of bugs living there. A centipede even fell from the ceiling while I was taking a bath. Imagine my horror! LOL. We didn't really think about getting it repaired since we won't be staying that long. I was just glad that after a couple of weeks, we moved out to live in our new home in Malabon. The construction of our house in Bulacan didn't push through because of certain circumstances that had to do with a certain real estate agency.

I'm just glad the roads here in Malabon were already fixed so we don't have to worry about living in any other apartment.