stephenAmurphy.com

So a few people have asked about my search for housing. In fact, my high school friend Mr. Edward Garnett, of the noted blog deoetpatriae.com, said this: “I’d like to see a segment where Steve describes his search for housing…I’d like to hear about the various options (trailer, room in a house occupied by a family and their attractive 18-year old daughter, haunted house on a hill).”

Inspired, I feel obliged to give the fans what they want. Babe Ruth hit homeruns. Michael Jordan sank game-winning shots. I write about my search for a place to live.

I thought it was going to be easy. I had heard that rent in Oklahoma is ridiculously cheap* ($350 for my own two-bedroom house would be typical), and I assumed that finding a place in the country would be relatively easy. My boss had emailed me a list of landlord numbers in the area, and I started calling them when I was a couple of days’ worth of driving away.

Twelve different landlords later and nothing available, I realized my assumption was horribly wrong. Stigler, believe it or not, is kind of ‘happening’ right now. They are putting a new prison nearby or something (hmm…), so they’re getting some state funds. I am coming at the right time. The new Wal-mart Supercenter is only a few months old (If you think I am joking, you are way off-base. Wal-mart is sweet. I’ve been there three times this week.), and a McDonald’s and Sonic are coming soon.

My boss has been great and he put me up in the aforementioned Don’s Motel in town for my first week, which is only a 20-second drive from my work. I’ve stayed there ever since. While getting my room made up every morning and watching HBO** are nice, living in a motel gets old after a while, not to mention pricey ($30 a night adds up.).

Slowly but surely, I began hearing of some possibilities. My first option was a very tiny two-bedroom house that was simply awful. My mom is afraid I am going to just settle for anything and that fear isn’t totally unfounded (I am spontaneous, not detail-oriented, and often lack common sense.). But this house was absurd. The floors sagged due to water damage. There was not a shower, only a dirty-looking tub. It just looked old. Granted, it was only $300 a month, but still… So I politely told the man I wasn’t interested.

Next, I checked out a trailer in Enterprise, 15 miles west of Stigler. Kim, a receptionist at the Stigler News Sentinel, had heard about it and knew I was looking for a place. I checked it out and I was surprised because it actually wasn’t bad. When I heard “trailer,” I was expecting something on wheels and something pathetic. But it was fairly nice. The landlord, an 80-year-old man who told me his life story***, kept it up really nice. It was freshly painted, cleaned up, had a nice backyard, etc.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to be in the greatest neighborhood (if you can call it that). It was basically at the corner of a four-way stop where two highways intersected (the 9 and the 71. Oh sorry, this isn’t LA. You probably aren’t supposed to say ‘the’ before freeways.).

The landlord even said there were a couple of “dopers” around who were always looking for a handout. I asked him what he meant, thinking that he meant stoners (which I figured I could handle. I mean, I’ve lived in California.). But then he explained that there were meth dealers in the area. Oh. Not so much.

Still, I was thinking about taking it. The rent for the three-bedroom trailer was $400 at a month, but I am pretty sure I could’ve talked him down to $350. Eventually, and probably thankfully, some people talked me out of it.

Finally, today, I checked out a place that might become the winner. It’s a small two-bedroom house at $375 a month in a really nice section of Stigler. The house is not without its flaws, its old and there’s a tiny leak in the roof (which the landlord, who the residents say is great, has promised to fix and said he would reimburse the current residents if they wanted to hire someone sooner on their own). But it will probably work for me, at the very least on the short term until a nicer house opens up.

The man who lives there now works in my office and let me know he was moving out at the end of the month. I will talk to the landlord soon and try to set something up. Fingers crossed.

That, ladies and gentleman, was my housing update. Sorry it was so long, and bravo to you for getting through it.

* Just to give the Okies some perspective, a couple of my buddies right out of college just moved into a tiny (no offense, guys) apartment in Hoboken, NJ. They are paying over $800 each a month (not including utilities). My sister, in an even tinier and much grosser apartment sitting right above a night club in Manhattan, paid well over $900 a month for her share of the apartment before she got out of that little slice of heaven.

** The Wire is pretty freakin’ good.

*** Four years ago, after a massive heart attack, he was put on life support. The doctors didn’t think he would make it. The day before they were about to pull the plugs, his daughter at his bedside started crying hysterically. Then, his head moved. They reconsidered their decision to take him off life support. Two days later, he woke up. Even if he was embellishing or even flat-out lying (which he wasn’t, I don’t think), it still made for a great story.