No Pets Allowed

As school is rapidly nearing the end of classes, so has my stress level. Naturally, I have not taken time out to write a proper blog amidst all the assignments. 

Over the last couple of weeks I've mainly been working on some big assignments so I've had to stay up really late trying to get as much done as I can. At the same time I have also had other tasks to attend to. Last Monday I got my birth control implant taken out. It was a quick 15 minute procedure where they put in some anasthetic and then pulled it out. I now have a nice little scab to remember it by. Unfortunately I have not had any immediate effects on my skin, but I feel I'm not really getting anything new. I've just got to learn to leave my skin alone! The fun part of all this is that the oral contraceptives need to be started on my next menstrual cycle in a month, but it takes two weeks for them to be fully effective. I'll be with Matt during that time so he'll just have to deal with the inconvenience. I really should have done this earlier. Also, I should add that the medicare issue has still not been fixed. 

This last week I have also put a lot of effort into finding an apartment for Matt and I (and our cat when he comes in September). There are lots of properties available in our budget range right now and I realized that if I found something I really liked I should move on it now. I made a spreadsheet of all the properties I was interested in and highlighted the best ones. Then I called all the real estate companies for the appropriate properties asking if pets were allowed. The majority said no, some didn't answer, and only four said it depends on the owner and I'd have to show up at the inspection on Saturday. I never knew this would be so difficult! It turns out that the government has very strict processes for allowing pets on any property and some areas they simply don't allow pets at all. Individually owned properties depend on the owner, but even if they say yes it's a complicated process to do all the paperwork for the government organization (Strata). Luckily, I am looking early, have already gathered the majority of the application materials, and can deal with the Strata paperwork for pets after I move in somewhere since I won't actually be able to have my cat until October. 

On Saturday I went to look at a few properties. The first one I absolutely hated with its brown carpet and small closets, and dirty looking shower. Surprisingly the apartment just below it was also open to see and it was nice with hardwood floors and a big kitchen, but it doesn't allow pets of course. Next was a townhouse that I liked from the moment I walked in. The layout was nice, it has a small yard in back, a nice kitchen with a good stove (some stoves I hate here), a big laundry area so we could easily have a dryer, two toilets instead of one, and the rooms had nice large mirrored closets (click here to see the listing)! The only major down fall was the horrible, overly worn pink carpet (so worn it's matted), but it's a small price to pay for other good things. On top of it all the woman showing the property was very nice and told me that if I was likely going to find a place that might allow pets it would be this one. I got an application and have been working with Matt online to get it all sorted. The applications are a pain requiring all kinds of stuff like rental receipts, your phone and electric accounts, pay slips showing proof of income and more. I think we've got it all sorted the best we can and we'll see what happens. There's another property that definitely allows pets in a better location that I won't be able to see until later this week so at least I have a couple of options. It will all work out somehow, but I now know that if you want to have a pet in Australia you should plan on having a house and not an apartment.