The Murder Building

When moving out on my own became a near future plan, I madly saved possible Craigslist advertisements, emailed those who posted them, and called any that had numbers available. After some weeks of searching I landed upon a listing for a bachelor suite. Six hundred square feet it said, with allowance of cats. I do not have a cat, but I had the potential. 
    July first, the day I planned to move was about a fortnight away. The lady behind the ad and myself were conversing rather frequently via email. I would ask a slew of questions and she would reply perhaps a day or so later. A little over a week before I was to move out of my garage-bedroom-mancave-situation, I let her know of the date I was coming in. It turned out to be July second because the ferries decided to be stupid as per usual, even more so with the holiday coming up. I had asked her if that would be alright and a couple other questions so as to make my email not look too empty. A day passed with no answer. That was expected. Another went by, and then so did the weekend, as did the monday after that. Still no response. I sent another email, this time exactly a week before heading out, to tell her that I would be coming the second of July, and probably some filler saying how excited I was and just fluff nonsense to keep my email from looking desolate. I don’t know why I’m weird about that, it’s just how it is.
She responded.
“We have accepted another tennant.” 
I think she said “take care” after that. But how in the names of the gods was I supposed to take care when the townhouse my garage domain was in would be going up for sale soon and I was to move out in a week?! So I journeyed, with my mother, to Vancouver Island, where I planned to live, to make a mad dash of a search for an adequate bachelor suite. I still had options from Craigslist and we stalked every address that was available for the listings I liked and knocked on every door we could find. There was one offender that we could not locate the door to save our lives. We really tried but ultimately failed. 
The next obstacle that was thrown our way was the fact we could only go over on a weekend as my mother worked all week and she had the car. As it turned out, most apartment offices are closed on weekends. This day became even more cursed. As we desperately browsed ads for my future settlement, one kept showing its face over and over. A blurry, grainy photo, taken at an angle from what seemed like a mile away of an ugly, cream colored high-rise. Some of the prices started at $0, others at $950. Either way it was the most sketchy of ads that I kept passing because there were so many for that building. 
As we continued to be thwarted by the closed doors of potential living spaces, my mother mentioned going to the insanely suspicious building to check it out. I countered this offer many a time but alas, we had few options. So away we went. 
This was the first place that allowed us in. the first place that had an open office on the weekend. The first place that I felt I would be killed shortly after moving in. 
We were greeted by a middle aged office lady who seemed like the kind of person that hates you no matter what you do and the best you can get from her is just absolute disappointment in your existence.
She showed us around the two main floors of the building which was oddly layed out. There were two entrances essentially but on two different floors, one above the other. The apartment is just one giant rectangle in between two streets. Thus the two entrances covered access from both sides. The door that led to the office, mail boxes, and laundry room was on the second floor. The road it faced contained a series of quaint shops and restaurants. The door that was on the street over led to an ominous, somewhat L shaped hallway-room. Walking in there was a small open space by the doors, a wall with a small office inside and another door sharing that wall that led to the next floor. Turning right showed two elevators on one side and a single one on the other. A door next to the two elevators took us into the parking garage. Everything was dimly lit, the hall area for the elevators was painted the same cream color as the outside of the building but had seen many years without a new coat. The doors of the elevators, office, and parkade were all a dark grey metal. The road on this side was much more sparsely populated with shops. There was a mexican restaurant, liquor store, and a couple of unbeknownst-to-me businesses.
We were then led to two different suites that were up for rent, a one bedroom and a bachelor. She took us to the one bedroom first. Stepping out of the pale-green painted elevator placed us in a single, narrow hallway. It was incredibly dim with cream walls and dark red carpet with gold floral designs. The carpet looked as though it belonged in a fancy hotel but didn’t make the cut and was very out of place here. The hall was lined with wooden doors and ended, both ways, to exit stairwells. Mind you, the stairs only go down, the door at the bottom is one way and won’t let you back up, leaving the elevator as the only mode of entry. Both suites looked the same, minus the extra bedroom. Everything was white and cream from the large-tiled floors to the walls, ceiling, curtains, and balcony that looked out over the shop-filled street below. The kitchens were tiny and the bathrooms were decently spacious making me suspicious that whoever designed this place had their priorities mixed up. There were two closets however that lived on a corner of one wall which I appreciated. The space though was quite small and the building itself lacked all sense of class. 
Where my quarrel really started with this building after its dreadful appearance was the stories about its history we received from the office lady. 
It was built in the seventies and gradually became what was known as a crackhouse. Undesirable folk lived here and dealt out all sorts of fun methods to end one’s life faster. It was also a site for multiple suicides and fires. Two streets over, on the liquor store side, was the road that most of the city's homeless folk gathered. The apartment was smack in the middle of downtown and also right where every shifty character around dwelled. 
She reassured us that the security over the years was wildy improved. Nothing opens without a key fob, not the door to get in, the elevators, or laundry room. She let us know as well that there was a security guard around every day that worked from the little office on the first floor to reinforce the protection of the people within. However, despite her saying that they were slowly flushing out the concerning folk and only letting in tenants that they deemed worthy, that she felt incredibly safe, and that the building was two thirds empty, I did not want to place my roots here. Especially after being told that a bachelor suite was $1100 a month which was the top of my desired budget. 
We told her we’d think about it and we left to search for more possibilities. None were proving successful and the day was coming to an end. We would be on the ferry back the next morning and today was all we had. 
My hope dwindled. I finally came to terms with the fact that the murder building was our only option and so we went backand filled out an application. The only good thing that came from this was when I was back on the mainland. A few days after we had gone over, I received a call asking if I still wanted the apartment I applied for. I hesitantly said sure and she explained a few things I’d have to do. Whilst I was being informed on basic rental things, she confirmed that the rent was $950. Taken aback, I asked if that truly was the case, since the office lady said $1100 was the price. As it turned out, the one bedroom was the one that cost the price we were told the bachelor suite was. 
It was a wee silver lining, but a silver lining nonetheless. I could thrive with paying less than a thousand a month, I could cope with being in a murder building that never actually had any murders in it, I could make a hub in the heart of downtown for the friends I was finally going to share a landmass with. I could live here