Now I Get It! Why Parents Want To Buy a House Before Having Children...

• Children need a place to RUN!

In case you didn't know... children (specially toddlers) need something to do.  The more tiring the activity, the more likely the child will nap 'longer'.  So now I understand why it is important to take children outside 'daily' (as the daycare officials say).  However, if you own a home and have a fenced in backyard... your children can run and play outside almost all day... get tired, do something, nap longer... keep you sane longer... etc.

If it was up to Jonas, he'd stay outside ALL DAY...

We're in the process of owning a home.  Let's see how it pans out.  

• No neighbors upstairs trying to give us lung cancer.

Neighbors.  Hmm.  I have moved every single year after getting married. 

First time, I moved from my mom's to live with my husband.  

2nd move, I was pregnant with Jonas and needed a deleaded apartment (I know some don't care about this, I do)... by the way, looking for an apartment while 'pregnant' happens to be harder than I thought.  People seem to not want children in their apartments--mainly so they don't have to pay to delead it, etc.  

PLEASE KNOW YOUR RIGHTS:  You cannot be denied an apartment for rent because you are pregnant or have children or because the place is not deleaded!  Unless the owners live in the building.

There was a man who was outright rude, mean because he saw I was pregnant and the place was not deleaded.  He seemed angry at my 'wasting his time'.  There aren't a lot of places that are deleaded.  It's a rare find.  (I didn't know all this until I had Mya).

3rd move, with Jonas, to a place with 2 bedrooms (closer to each other), better neighborhood (so you don't have to hear the drug dealers' party and their bragging about their 'empire'; so that no one steals from your car while you're parked out of the street), and no rats (if someone lives with a cat and brags about no rodents--beware!  It may be they have the cat for a reason).  

4th move, with Jonas and second pregnancy... because the condo was for 'sale'.  Okay... this was the worst search for an apartment, with the best results--in a weird way.

The search for a deleaded apartment proved impossible.  I was almost due so I was in a hurry to find an apartment... so I started looking at apartments that weren't deleaded (or it was just unknown).  It seemed like the whole world was trying to hide from my obviously pregnant self.  

At one point, the lady the was going to show me the apartment, saw me pregnant getting out of the car, and REFUSED to let me 'see' the apartment.  THIS IS DISCRIMINATION, according to the HUD laws.  I knew the owner didn't live in the building and I told her she was discriminating against me... but she just said, the apartment is not deleaded and I don't want to lose my license.  Wow.  Anyway, I filed a complaint against her.  This was in May 2010, now it's December and the investigator assigned to my case decided to take it further because of "probable cause".  This just means I got appear at a public hearing in January.  I didn't think it was going to go this far, all I was looking for was basically an apology.  Then they started lying... wow, they lied badly... they twisted everything up and made it seem as though I was the crazy one--that they NEVER denied letting me see the apartment.  Well, I just found out they have another lawsuit against them.  I'm not sure where this is going... I'm just making sure they CANNOT do this to somebody else.  By the way, isn't it weird that they didn't let me see the same apartment I already saw 3 yrs back when the man was really rude to me... yeah, he's getting sued also.  I didn't know until later.

Anyway... neighbors upstairs smoke so much, the smoke comes into our house through the bathroom.  I've complained... but I just don't want to deal with this anymore.  I've only been at this apartment for 5 months.

• Protect those expensive toys with your own storage.

Okay.  Who knew that children's toys would be SOOO expensive???  If bought brand new.  However, I've learned that it's best to buy them used, like in yard sales and 'building 19' or other used stores... make sure you wash them well.  

However, if you don't own a home, you run the risk of living in an apartment without secure storage... as is our case.  Small apartment cannot hold all our things... so a lot of our stuff is just vulnerable to... you know, those who take something that doesn't belong to them?

And so, finally, this is why we have decided to own a home NOW... other than the fact that houses are selling SO cheap right now... and that interest rates are at 4% right now... and that now that I'm not working--for some weird reason, I'm getting more help to buy a home than when I was working full time.  Hey, I've payed my taxes :).