Uh-oh

So Frank drops the bomb on me today and tells me that he's buying a condo, he put the down payment down yesterday and he's moving out in a couple months (end of April or so).

That puts me in quite a pickle.

I've been brainstorming the last few hours, and making phone calls, and heres what I've come up with.

1) Take over the lease and try to find a roommate. This would be nice because *I* wouldn't have to move; plus, I wouldn't have to worry about finding a new place and having to pay first month's rent and a security deposit. We'd just change the lease from his name to mine and life would go on as usual. The major flaw in this plan is FINDING a roommate, since all of my friends (teacher-friends) are all in leases until mid to late summer, depending on when they got down here. I thought about trying to do it on my own till they started getting out of their leases (Joelle and I, for example, had talked about living together when our leases were up), but there's just no way I can swing it on my own. Right now, I'm paying a flat $600 a month for my part of rent, utilities, etc. I found out tonight that rent alone is just over $1000 a month (yes, housing is VERY expensive down here), plus all the bills....I just can't do that on my own. So I would HAVE to find a roommate right away.

My best lead on that is actually another girl at school, who's out of her lease in late March (so the timing would be absolutely perfect) and has already said that she's going to be looking for a new place to live. The big drawback here is that this is the teacher who just had a baby, so I'd be living with an infant. Not that I dont LIKE babies...but...yeah. Still, it would really work out well for both of us, timing wise, etc--plus, I have a washer and dryer in the apt, and I know that that was something she didn't like about her current place --hers didn't, and as you know, you do a LOT of laundry with a baby.

Or, I could find a roommate the way Frank found ME, with roommates.com, but that's taking a big chance again....the whole living with a stranger thing worked out great with Frank, but i may not be that lucky next time.

2) Move into a one bedroom somewhere, but again, I'd have to shell out for first months rent (and security deposit, etc) which is a bit pricey......along these same lines, I know that some apartment complexes let you switch from one apartment to another in the same commplex and consider that "staying in your lease," so Frank's going to check with the office about that possibility (my taking over this lease from him and then switching to a one bedroom. THAT would be great, living on my own and still not having to pay first rent/security deposit, etc, if I can afford it, which I have to look into).

3) As a last resort, there's a teacher in our little social circle who has a condo with a spare (furnished) guestroom.I could ask her if I could rent that out from her through the summer, at least till the other teachers start getting freed up from THEIR current leases, and then move into a new place with my new roommate.

My big problem with options A and B at this point is getting furniture....all the furniture here belongs to Frank--shoot, I still dont have a BED. =-) He did say he'd leave some of it behind, like the entertainment center, couch and maybe dining room table....but I'm still looking at having to get a lot of stuff relatively soon. If I can stay here and just get a roommate, that will help a lot....but if I have extra costs associated with all this (like security deposit, etc, somewhere new) then I may have a bit of a problem.

So....I'm going to start exploring these options and we'll see what shapes up.