Fall is a special time. Our youth return to
school eager to expand their minds and
explore the far reaches of institutional learning.
Lazy, hazy summer gives way to the
familiar ebb and flow of the everyday routine.
In the mountains, the forest is washed
over with crisp, fluorescent reds, oranges
and yellows. Many of us spend our days
strolling through a pumpkin patch sipping
mulled cider, a fashionable sweater tucked
neatly over our shoulders, a professional
model flirtatiously holding our hand.
Wait. Does anybody actually do that?
Sorry, I was confused for a moment and
accidentally lived out a scene from one of the
dozens of catalogues that arrive in my mailbox
like locusts this time of year.
For most of us who don’t live in a fantasy
world concocted by L.L. Bean or Lands End,
autumn isn’t about contemplating the higher
meaning of the harvest. It’s about moving
all of our stuff from one place to another.
If you don’t have a slab of land, four walls
and a roof to call your own, you live at the
mercy of a landlord.You rent.And as a renter,
you are most likely subject to the tick-ticktick
of a 12-month clock. While you won’t
turn into a pumpkin when the second hand
reaches zero, there’s a good chance that you
will be scrambling for somewhere else to live
for no other reason than apartment wanderlust.
By renting, you escape the grinding responsibility and commitment of paying a
mortgage, but you often fall into the trap of
promiscuous apartment hopping, leaping
from dwelling to dwelling in search of a perfect
abode that in all likelihood exists only in
the mists of your imagination.
For the better part of a decade, I’ve been
slogging across parts of the country each fall,
a restless vagabond trying to hitch onto any
and every experience that comes my way. It all
started at the tender age of 13, when I shimmied
my way off to boarding school.
Fourteen years later, I’ve decided to halt the
migratory process, if only for a spell. I’m staying
in the same apartment for a second year.
When we moved from the Boston
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area a year ago this summer, we’d heard apocalyptic
stories about moving across the country.
Moving companies that were a front for the
mob. Hardened criminals who posed as
legitimate movers only to vanish into the
nether regions of America after packing up a
house. People who carefully packed a Ryder
truck on one coast only to find a hideous
mishmash of smashed dishes, furniture and
clothes on the other coast. It was clearly a
hazardous undertaking.
But in poking around the California moving
scene during the past month of “apartment
peeping,” it’s clear that the West Coast
knows how to party down when it comes to
moving out. Out here, packing up all of your
personal belongings doesn’t have to be a lifealtering
crisis with the potential to cause a
genuine psychotic event.Who knew?
First, there are the ubiquitous moving
pods that are scattered across the streets of
Los Angeles. The idea here is pretty simple:
jam all your stuff inside a big box, lock it up
so Tony Soprano keeps his hands off, and
ship it to your new address. A friend tells me
that if you’re the paranoid type, you can
even track your stuff via GPS.
I also caught wind of a company called
NorthStar Moving that offers the royal
Hollywood treatment for those who are so
inclined. If you can’t be bothered to actually
lift a finger, these guys will come in and actually
pack your house/apartment as you leave
it and unpack it in your new residence. Leave
dirty dishes on the table and they’ll take care
of it. Leave your dresser jammed with
clothes and you’ll find the same jumble on
the other side. The idea is based on a classic
American idea: pay somebody else to do the
icky stuff you don’t want to do.
Finally, there’s Santa Monica’s notorious
rent control, which allows long-time tenants
in the city to have a stranglehold on ancient
leases at cut-market rates. Instead of the law
of supply and demand, the apartment market
is ruled by what the Santa Monica Rent
Control Board demands. You know: haphazard,
indiscriminate favoritism based on
nothing in particular but the whims of a few
starry-eyed idealists. Would you move if
your rent was the same price as a few tanks
of gas? Neither would I.
It’s the easiest move out there, by a mile.
Seth Barnes can be reached at barnesseth@hotmail.
com. |
