I have been living here since February, 2020 and there are condos all over the place and a price war of sorts has begun as there are not anywhere near as many people visiting / living here as there normally would be thanks to our global pal Coronavirus.
Recently, I had decided to make a move to another condo and just like most people that live here, i am being subjected to loads of photo galleries online to try to make my choice before I go do a face-to-face with the individual condos. A lot of places eliminate themselves from eligibility just by having remarkable stupid designs.
Check out that TV placement in regards to where the sofa is. After all, most of us watch TV on the sofa, correct? So what am I supposed to do? Lie down and look straight up at an inverted picture? Am I meant to sit at that kitchen table and watch TV? What is the sofa for in this setup? I'm sure there are people out there that have reading rooms or something but i think 90% of the world uses sofas for watching TV. I don't think they could have possibly designed this more wrong if they tried.
This place was advertised as the "Penthouse unit" and first off, who was in charge of the color scheme? Someone from the 70's or 80's no doubt. That's not the best part though. You can see a bit of the sofa in the foreground and opposite that there is an area that a normal human would put their television. But the designers here thought that putting the cooking range top over there would be a better idea. The only television in the unit is in the bedroom, where you have to turn your head to the side to look at it.
Also, the sink is on the other side of the friggin room. Just idiotic.
To be fair to this one I'll admit that this was one of the cheapest units I looked at yesterday and when I am standing there looking at this glass closet I was thinking to myself "what could the purpose of that possibly be?" Is the washing machine really noisy? Because if that is the case that silly glass closet isn't going to help very much in noise reduction. Certainly a new washing machine would be cheaper than the custom glass work. It just doesn't make any sense.
I have spoken to my Vietnamese friends to make certain that this isn't just me being picky and this is actually how they like their apartments to be and found out that no, they hate it to and many times these choices are made by the builder because of where they decided to put water and electrical access - which i would think would be one of the most important aspects of building.
Lastly we have this.
This one was the most frustrating of all for me and not just because there is an always illuminated sign showing where the exit is inside of your 1 bedroom apartment - just in case you get lost, I guess. Or even because it has 2 really small bathrooms instead of one normal sized one. This listing frustrated me the most when I found it online because of the fact that I am very familiar with this unit.....because I currently live in one exactly like it. It is my unit. I live in this exact apartment. I currently pay $380 for it as well.
When I confronted the owner about this she told me this price is for new customers only. I asked for the same rate or something close to it and she refused even though I told her she would have one less "current customer" if she insisted on not changing my rent. Her refusal is a major reason why I am leaving, which is a shame because me and Nadi have been quite happy here.
She's had a haircut since I took this photo
They could have placed the sofa upside-down...???
You at least can be picky and maybe fussy with so many rentals available. I am sure if you take the time you will find something amazing. This is just a numbers game and sifting through he crappy ones. I remember a hotel which was a new build and they put the toilet roll on the back of the door. When you closed the door it then became out of reach lol.
This post made me loled
ah good! I wish it was as humorous when I am terribly disappointed by a potential apartment :)
I can't say for certain but i think that closet might be so that you can leave the window open for laundry to dry and still air con the rest of the house if you want. However, if that is the case it is dumb because the air con on its own would dry the clothes faster than a silly small open window in a room with no chance of a breeze.
well i was never going to live in that unit anyway. I think when they give you a 20 inch TV that it is more insulting than anything else. I'd rather there not be a TV at all since my external monitor is bigger than that anyway.
I love watching hours of TV standing.
yeah of course... who doesn't?
Wow, these are some really weird setups, indeed. Hopefully the ones renting them out can change the layouts... because if not, then they're kind of dumb.
That first one, with the TV next to the sofa, I've been in some hotels with that layout and I certainly didn't find it very useful.
Now, that last part is quite odd. So, your landlord is willing to make a discount on your apartment.... to everyone but you? Maybe she's not a fan of Metal. 🤪
I am like the most polite person here. I make a conscious effort to be as quiet as possible and I seem to be the only one especially my neighbors above me who sound as though they re-arrange all the furniture 2x a day so they can do aerobics in their living room, then move it back before shouting all the way down the halls on their way to the beach before they come back covered in sand and then leave it all over the elevator.
I don't think it has anything to do with me personally, she is just trying to profiteer, and it isn't going to work on me!
Wow, those are some pretty crazy placements for that stuff. It makes more sense over here because you get these old houses that weren't meant to have large screen tv's on the wall etc and they just didn't think about that sort of stuff when they built them. If it is a new construction, there is just no excuse. It should have plenty of grounded power outlets in the appropriate places and network cable running throughout! That stinks about your place. I hate it when people/companies do that. It seems to happen a lot with cell phone companies. New customers get all the deals, loyal customers get crap.
When I was in business school we studied the fact that it costs 10x as much to get a new customer than it is to keep the ones you already have. I don't know if this applies to condos but these places also struggle with tenants that are destructive or don't stay very long. I plan to live here for years and never make any problems for anyone.
I'm gonna give her another chance in a week and see if she changes her mind. If not, it will be official at that point...we're moving.
Guess they eat and watch TV then go to the couch to read before heading off to bed. The glass closet is weird but intriguing. It would make a terrible hiding spot for hide-and-go-seek! Just terrible. Nadi looks awfuly comfortable. Did you post about the hair cut? Did I miss it?? I'll go back and see.
i can see how that might be slightly frustrating to see the apartment that you currently live in and pay for being offered online for 30% less than you pay for it. I would move out as well.
i'm just not terribly happy with the other offerings either. It seems that in order to secure a truly awesome place, you need to be willing to pay for 2 places at the same time for a month since none of the bargain places are going to wait 3 weeks for your current lease to expire.
lol....Wow. Just amazing! Gotta love Vietnam!