The apartment search was interesting… at times it was mad difficult and then at the end it seemed a piece of cake. It took us 6 days from start to finish and we wound up with a large flat and wonderful landlords- Victoria and I got lucky! Initially it was going to be Victoria, Jacqui and me sharing a place and the three of us arrived a week before schedule to meet up and get settled.
We started our search right away at the MICEFA office on Rue du Faubourg St. Jacques, leafing through binders of available studios, rooms, and apartments. It soon became clear that we would find no easy solution for us three together so we agreed to split with Jacqui going solo- she was the only one with enough of a budget to afford a studio for herself. A little weary but still determined, we continued searching with our new game plan.
It was difficult because calls had to be made and visits scheduled in French, and then we had to navigate the new city just to see the places. The first place we visited (when we still thought we’d be three together) was the living room in an old woman’s apartment for over 1200€… not ideal. Anyway, we kept looking and Victoria and Jacqui were wonderful with calling everyone and arranging visits (they’ve both studied french a lot longer than I have).
We all tried craigslist.fr and other parisian apartment websites but we all wound up taking MICEFA listings… these landlords are used to renting to students and understand that you’re totally lost and confused. They’re a little more patient. Most importantly though, the only fees are for security deposits. On other sites you’re probably looking at a month’s rent in agency fees on top of the first month and security. Not fun.
We found a 27m2 studio for 750€ in a great neighborhood… modern kitchen and bathrooms (toilet is separate from bath) and a large enough central space with a fold-out futon for the two of us to share. Side note: a futon is called a “clik-clak” here. Hehe. Anyway, we were ready to take it right then and there but the landlord’s son advised that we see another place or two just to be sure this was the one. The next day, Madame Dupuis showed us our dream apartment and that was the end of it.
I’ll let pictures do the real talking but the specifics are as follows: 800€ for the 30m2 apartment. Separate toilet/bath again but the selling point was separate living space and bedroom. Big bedroom with big closet AND a reclining Voltaire chair. Win. It’s a few hundred feet from one of Paris’s biggest metro stations, Montparnasse-Bienvenüe, which makes travel easy-peasy. It’s awesome.
Jacqui wound up finding a studio with a view of the tip of the Eiffel Tower (when you stand in a certain spot in her kitchen). She is in love. Her place is actually really nice… it’s a newly redone chambre de bonne with it’s own bathroom- rare! The only hitch is that she has to march up a thousand flights of stairs every day. She’s going to have buns of steel by the end of the year.
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