robot_grrl already reported, we spent a couple of hours this morning looking at rental houses since our temporary housing is about to run out and we still haven't sold our house near Chicago -- and may not for a while given the economic turmoil.
The first house we looked at was a three bedroom with only a two car garage. This is much smaller than the houses we've been looking at buying, but for six months it would work. The major draw back was that it had a fully xeriscaped yard, so the dog would have to go on the cinders. Derrick was saying that he could still take the dog out for a walk -- and he probably will -- but I didn't see anywhere close by that the dog could use either. One odd thing was that one of the bedrooms had a murphy bed. I'm not sure, however, given the size of the bedroom that we'd be able to open the bed if we had either desk in that room.
The second house had some real advantages. It was a 4 bedroom with a 3 car garage, so it would allow us to unpack more completely and have a separate office and guest room (not that we have a guest bed yet). It also had much nicer yard, but a fair amount of grass that I'd have to mow. However, nearly half of the back yard was a steep hill -- up. But there were steps and a couple of benches. It also had hardwood throughout, which led to one of our concerns about this house. Coming down the stairs, our Realtor slipped and fell. Fortunately she wasn't badly hurt.
The third house was sized in between the first and the second. Like the first, it was a 3 bedroom with a two car garage. But it was in better shape than the first two. It had a couple of other advantages. First, it was the only house with a washer and dryer, so we wouldn't have to buy or rent a pair. Second, the rent includes yard maintenance. A bonus is that it also has a hot tub (and maintenance for that is included in the rent as well). Like the second house, it also has about half the back yard on a steep hill, but in this case it goes down. At first we weren't sure that it was fully fenced, but then I saw a good fence at the bottom of the hill. It should hold the dog (who may be the only one who wants to walk up and down the hill).
Feeling like we were in an episode of "House Hunters" we quickly discussed our options and went with house number three. However, when our Realtor called them, she got voice mail, and had to leave a message. We were hoping to hear today or tomorrow since we really need to be in this week if at all possible. But we are still waiting to hear. If we cannot get them to go for a six month lease, we'll have to decide between house number 2 and a 12 month lease on house number 3.
The person at our relocation agency seemed to think that Qualcomm might help us out with the rent since we are still trying to sell our house. I'll give her a call on Monday and let her know that we're working on renting a place and would like her to see if we can get any assistance.
Since we got home early, we were at loose ends this afternoon. So I took Derrick over to the Birch Aquarium at the Scrips Oceanographic Institute (which is now part of UCSD, which we are right next to). It was a nice afternoon, and a nice aquarium. It isn't as big as the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, and is about the size of the ones in Albuquerque and Seattle. It does have a nice collection mostly from the eastern Pacific ocean -- from Alaska down to the tropics.
Derrick and I enjoyed ourselves.
