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Standing in a pool of water as I surveyed my flooded kitchen, I realized that it was time to move.

When Hubby and I had moved in together, we decided that we would rent, at least to start off. In an effort to find a location between both our places of employment, we were relocating to an area where neither of us had lived before, so we didn’t want to get stuck spending years paying for a house if we unwittingly bought in a not-so-pleasant neighborhood. As renters, we would have the luxury of being able to pull up roots anytime we pleased — though I hoped we’d find a nice place where we could stay for a while, so we wouldn’t have to worry about house hunting anytime soon.

After a few weeks of fruitless searching for an apartment, during which we bickered and fought over every single property that we looked at, we found the one place that we were able to agree on. It was a cute little townhouse, almost exactly at the halfway point between our jobs, with everything we had been looking for. It had two bedrooms, three bathrooms, a fireplace, a patio, and a garage. It was spacious enough for two, there was room to set up an office, and the price was right. It seemed too good to be true.

That’s because, well, it was.

Though the place looked perfect upon our first visit, our perspective changed come moving day. We quickly found things about it that were just a little … off. While the carpets had been meticulously cleaned and conditioned prior to our arrival, the walls were not — and we weren’t allowed to paint them. Instead, I spent hours scrubbing at them with various cleaning supplies, which helped a little but still left me with fairly dingy drywall. Grudgingly, I realized that I was fighting a losing battle and figured that after we hung some things up to disguise the mess, we could live with it. I put it out of my head and happily moved on with our unpacking.

Then I stepped on an exposed nail on the steps. And Hubby’s closet doors fell off. And we noticed that the sink in our bathroom was slowly leaking into the cabinet beneath, completely soaking the rolls of toilet paper that we had placed in it. And, because part of our upstairs neighbors’ apartment is located above our living room, we could hear them thumping around and talking and yelling and blasting music at all hours.

Some of the problems have diminished over time, at least. Our landlady sent a contractor over to take care of the nail and doors and leaks, and we sheepishly spoke to our neighbors about the blaring music.

Then we found new things to irk us. The first time we used our oven, Hubby and I discovered that our smoke detector was mounted entirely too close to the kitchen, and the heat from the oven was enough to set it off. Now, any time that I bake something at more than 400 degrees, Hubby mans his post at the kitchen door to fan as much hot air away from the detector as he can. Naturally, this does not work, and the alarm continues to blare at us every time.

And of course there was that time when the upstairs neighbors’ kitchen flooded. I’m sure it wasn’t strictly their fault, but that didn’t help when I came home one day to find what appeared to be half the Chesapeake Bay in my kitchen. At first, I thought our refrigerator had sprung a leak — until I realized the water was also on top of the shelves of my baker’s rack. We never did find out what caused the flood upstairs, but whatever it was gushed out enough water to soak through their floor and into our ceiling.

Again, I’m sure it’s not the neighbors’ fault that this happened. But from now on, I’d really like my household problems caused by me.

Now there’s a new development: In addition to our apartment’s series of quirks, I now appear to be allergic to it. Every day, without fail, I immediately break into hives the minute I come home from work. I keep everything clean and tidy, and I can’t figure out what’s causing it, but it makes for a not-so-relaxing way to spend my evenings.

Despite everything, I still mostly like our apartment, and I do feel at home here (aside from the evening itchiness). We’ve made some lovely memories here, and it will always be the place where Hubby and I started our lives together.

But it’s time to move on. Our one-year lease is up at the end of February, and we’ve begun the process of finding our next (and, I hope, permanent) residence. Already, I have visions of home ownership dancing through my little head: Colorful (and clean!) painted walls and no upstairs neighbors and a proper smoke detector and a backyard and an Old English Sheepdog and a deck and a very distinct lack of allergens.

Let the house hunting begin.

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