12. Passy – broke my heart!

This was a breaking point for me. I loved this apartment. It was modern, newly renovated, spacious, in a great neighborhood with tons of shops and just a stone’s throw from the metro with a direct line to the office. The owner, however, was a control freak, monitoring the visits from a corner of the apartment – a corner I was too intimated to go to. We saw it at the same time as another candidate, which made it even more awkward. The broker was very professional, sophisticated. I asked her, just tell me what it’s going to take to get this place. Well it seemed simple, sort of. We should be willing to put a year’s worth of rent on a bank account that we couldn’t touch as a “caution” or guarantee. Fine. The young man apparently had a better dossier than us, but it seemed the owner would prefer a couple than a young bachelor. But there was a catch to that even. She wanted to make sure we weren’t going to have children because that’s why the previous tenants moved out. Seriously! And then if we were willing to block another six months of rent on top of the year, that would help too. That wasn’t happening, but tears were shed over this one.