When my husband and I signed our new lease, we were pumped for a fresh start.
We were in our mid-20s and ready for a new adventure, but who knew we’d be stepping into one of the most expensive mistakes of our lives?
It all started last April when we felt the itch for change. We wanted to remain in the same city because it was close to family, but our current routines felt draining. We’d also just faced a lengthy insurance claim and repair costs from severe storm damage.
We thought: What if we could sell our starter home to pay off our student loans, have more disposable income, and save for a couple of years for our family dream home, all while renting a trendy place near downtown? At the time, it seemed like a no-brainer.
We found a luxury apartment complex near downtown
A new luxury apartment complex seemed to check all the boxes. It was near the hustle and bustle of downtown Tulsa. While not a large city, Tulsa is up and coming and has a lot of noteworthy food, art, and music options, including a top-rated food hall in all of America, called Mother Road Market, right across the street from the complex.
Courtesy of Abigale Albera
We’d also be located on the iconic Route 66, where every business boasts a show-stopping neon sign. Of course, there was an underlying nervous feeling, but we chalked that up to the possibility of taking a big leap.
When we visited, some of the amenities were unfinished, but we were told that they were on track to be completed by our moving timeline.
To us, the building felt luxurious; there were many community spaces to make new connections with people our age, and the process of selling our home was already going smoothly. We thought it was all working out as planned.
So, a month later, once we closed on our house, we moved in.
Spoiler alert: It did not work out as planned
The problems started as soon as our belongings were unpacked. We immediately had many maintenance issues in our apartment — from the electrical, to the WiFi, to the stove, to the showers.
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Hardly any of the community amenities had opened up as promised. It seemed like nothing worked properly for a “luxury” complex.
Just a week after moving in, we were tucked in for the evening when blaring fire alarms shook us from the comfort of our bed. We peeked into the hallway and made eye contact with our neighbors across the hall, all of us wondering if it was a real fire.
Alongside our neighbors, pets in tow, alarms blasting in our ears, we made the trek to the apartment’s courtyard to escape the incessant noise. We waited there for over an hour until the alarms stopped — at least for that night.
Unfortunately, those alarms berated us at all hours of the day and night at least once every couple of weeks for the entirety of our residency.
The final straw was the Fourth of July
As we wound down after a fun night with friends, we heard water dripping in the hallway.
Residents thought the leak upstairs was from the rain that day, but it was a fully burst water pipe that flooded all units below it, including ours.
We broke our lease soon after, luckily without penalty.
Courtesy of Abigale Albera
The whole ordeal of moving out of the luxury apartment (ironically right back to the area we started), buying new furniture to replace the damaged pieces from the flood, and then paying for the security deposit plus first month’s rent in our new place cost us thousands that we weren’t expecting to pay.
Saying we were frustrated after taking out a renters insurance claim to replace our belongings just nine months after concluding a six-month-long homeowners insurance claim would be an understatement.
We lived at the “luxury” apartment for only eight weeks, but due to displacement, we paid over $5,000 for hotel stays, meals, and furniture replacement that we had to wait for insurance to reimburse.
So, what did we learn?
We’ve been living comfortably in our new place for almost a year. Now that everything’s settled, we joke that the suburbs called us home.
If you’re considering a crazy move, I can say from experience that the grass isn’t always greener. Do your research, and make sure you have good insurance.
