When I first moved out on my own, I was barely making a living wage. I tried to save wherever possible. That first year, I moved into a really cheap apartment. I didn’t care that it was a rundown apartment. I just cared that I was able to afford living on my own and was learning to be independent. I didn’t think it through much; I just signed the lease for the apartment and moved myself in. Slowly, things started to break down in the apartment. The first issue I had was that the stove stopped working. The landlord fixed that pretty quickly. Then, the water wasn’t coming out hot anymore. I was showering in cold water. The landlord took a week to fix that. The worst problem I had was when the air conditioner stopped working. It shut down in the middle of a hot summer day. I called my landlord immediately. I left five voicemails for him. It took him five days to return my calls. Then, it took three weeks to fix my air conditioner. I was dying during those three weeks. It was the hottest few weeks of my life. I quickly realized that moving into a cheap apartment meant I wouldn’t have the best landlord and I wouldn’t have the best appliances. I should’ve looked into the apartment a bit more before moving into it. I learned my lesson. I moved out as soon as my lease ended. I found a better apartment and with a much better landlord. I haven’t had any problems in this new place thankfully!