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DC is EXTREMELY expensive. I wouldn't do it if I were you. This is a terrible place to live plus you are going to have a hard time finding a place that accepts one pet let alone two and most places will require a pet rent in addition to your monthly rent. A few thousand dollars will only get your moved into the apartment(first and last months rent, etc).
As stated...DC is very expensive. Unless you are an educated professional making $50K+ it is a very hard city to live in. The COL here only trails SF and NYC. Only Boston is close. If you are moving from Florida be prepared for sticker shock.
As people noted, Apartments often charge a pet fee, and you don't have paid work. Year long leases are pretty much mandatory, though sometimes you can find six month ones. That is two strikes against you. Unlike the veteran with years of professional experience and an education, you are up against tough odds.
As somebody noted, in the safer areas of DC you are looking at $1500+ for an apartment in most cases.
I should note, if you don't have a college education, it will be difficult to find a job.
Seriously, your partner should just go by themselves until they can sort the job/housing situation for you to be able to join them later (hopefully in a few months). You can always visit them. In a few months, your partner may get an offer, have a better handle on the neighborhoods and the available places, and network enough to find a place that isn't advertised that allows pets, cheap and isn't in a slum.
There should be boards or social networks where unpaid interns hang out, and those are probably the best places to find a room to sublet. There are a lot of colleges in the DC area and students go abroad, do externships, or co-ops and are looking to sublet. Maybe you'll find an entire studio or 1BR that allows pets, though I wouldn't count on it.
I am a Florida native that has lived in Orlando my entire life and plan to move to DC this fall, hopefully to start a life there but mainly for my newly-graduated Partner's (unpaid) internship at the Holocaust museum which starts mid-August.
I have some unusual circumstances, and any advice would be greatly appreciated.
First off, my partner wants to start off the move on a month-to-month lease, just in case things don't work out (mainly, if we are unable to find jobs, if the internship doesn't turn into a job offer, etc). We have a few thousand bucks saved to tide us over for maybe a month or two, and hope before the money runs out we will find employment that will allow us to continue paying our rent/bills. We both have bachelor's degrees and experience working for reputable, world-recognized companies that excel in guest service (Disney, Universal).
We've had nothing but bad luck using Craigslist, with most housing posts turning out to be scams and the ones that were legit only willing to lease for a year, minimum.
We also have pets- a cat and a small dog. The dog loves people and is not destructive, but can be overbearingly energetic towards new people (jumps on them, demands attention by getting in peoples faces and not leaving them alone) so most people get overwhelmed by him. Thus, I don't think a roommate situation would work out, nor a situation where we rent out a room in someone else's home.
Here in Orlando our rent is $912 a month for a two-bedroom apartment, and we're looking for a one-bedroom near DC (no more than 30-45 min away from the city, preferably)... it doesn't have to be a big place or a nice place, but in a generally safe area. We live now right around Universal Studios, which isn't the best part of town, and have loud crazy neighbors and see drug deals/cops getting called all the time, so we're not afraid to live somewhere with a "bad rep" as long as it's not so bad I'd have to fear for my safety walking the dog at night, or walking from my car to the front door. We just want it to be reasonably close to the city with rent that isn't astronomically high. Though of course, we expect to pay more than we would in Orlando.
So as a DC resident, does this seem like something impossible? A couple with two animals, looking for an affordable place near DC that isn't incredibly dangerous? Is it even less viable to find a place like this with short-term leasing options? We are at a complete loss and can use all the help and advice we can get. If you know of an apartment complex that fits this description, a management company who could help us out... that would be great.
In Orlando I used a free service called Apartment Hunters that located apartments for you based on certain criteria, and they got a commission of sorts once you moved in. Is there anything like that for DC that you know of?
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