Rental Guide: How to rent an apartment that’s good for your mental health

Renting for the first time is intimidating. You have to assess whether a landlord is trustworthy, perform a rapid cost-benefit analysis on the size, location and cost of a place, decide how safe the area feels and often get three or more people to agree on a house or apartment before somebody else closes on the deal.

Hopefully when you’re doing all of this, you’ll be in an ideal frame of mind. But no one is in an ideal frame of mind all the time. Whether you suffer from a mental illness or you’re just a stressed college student, one of the best things you can do for your future self is to keep in mind the details that make your life more bearable when you’re under a lot of pressure and look at every apartment through the lens of one of your bad days.

I don’t have any prescriptions for you, only recommendations. As with most things in life, money will ultimately determine where you can live, and roommate situations are subject to complicated social dynamics and the whims of fate. That said, I know from experience that things that seem like extras when you’re healthy will become life-saving necessities when you’re in the throes of mental illness, stressed out, in the middle of a breakup or whatever the unpleasant case might be.

Your physical environment is important to your mental well-being, and this goes beyond how much space there is and whether the bathroom is tolerable. A lot of people find their mood affected by the seasons, and the gloominess of long, dark Pittsburgh days can be aggravated by a dimly lit apartment. How big are the windows in this place? Are the lights good? And if not, is it because of bulbs that can be easily replaced? Is there a fire escape, roof access or a nice porch that you can rely on when you need some fresh air?

Check in with yourself, and decide how important it is to you that a place where you’re living for a year looks nice or is in a nice area. Think about the details. If you’re moving in somewhere with hardwood floors, and homeyness for you is synonymous with carpet under your feet, you’ll need to invest in throw rugs. If a place that’s otherwise perfect is intolerably dim, you might want to really consider a light therapy lamp like the ones they use to treat seasonal affective disorder.

Think about your walk to campus. It’s acceptable when you’re feeling well — will it look 10 miles longer when you’re in the middle of a depressive episode? Will that prevent you from going to class? Does your path pass anywhere near a bus stop? Be realistic; after living with yourself for at least 18 years, you know whether living in Squirrel Hill will affect your class attendance.

For example, I personally try never to live more than two minutes from a reliable food source. I’m not talking Market District — CVS or Sunoco will do — just as long as I can go there at nearly any hour to buy milk, eggs, soup and Easy Mac. Don’t get me wrong — I’d rather not subsist on ramen and gas station hot dogs. But I have occasional depressive episodes, and if I don’t really cook, and I have a breakdown while living more than five minutes from a convenience store or small grocery, I’ll eat nothing for two weeks but cold pizza and shame.

Likewise, on-site laundry, which might look like a luxury when you’re healthy, could be the sole determining factor in whether you ever have clean clothes next year.

No matter what your baseline level of mental health is, probably nothing will determine whether your renting experience is tolerable more than the people you end up living with. I personally recommend that anyone with depression, no matter how introverted, should try to live with at least one roommate, and the roommate should be someone that person can confide in. You don’t have to live with your best friend — and if your best friend is pushy or overwhelming, you shouldn’t — but you should try to live with someone you feel comfortable telling up front that you have mental health issues. It would also be beneficial if that person doesn’t overreact when you’re struggling and will quietly check in with you if you’ve been missing for days. If you have depressive episodes with low energy, you might benefit from the positive peer pressure of having other people whose lives are affected by whether or not you get out of bed and do the dishes. If you have social anxiety, you should be able to ask that your roommates deal with your landlord, repair people or cable company if the thought is making your throat close up, in exchange for your doing an extra set of dishes here and there.

For that matter, how hands-on is your landlord? Does he or she live nearby or (God forbid) on the premises? I was told in no uncertain terms that you should never live with your landlord, and I’ve never met someone whose experience doing so was pleasant. At the same time, you want your landlord to be quick to respond if your heat doesn’t work in the winter. And if you’re not assertive enough to advocate that, you want to have a roommate who is.

Likewise, clarify the procedure for your landlord showing your house or apartment to prospective tenants. How much notice will you get? Can you dictate times when he or she can’t come around? Decide well in advance and agree on these terms with your roommates so you’ll be able to present a united front if your landlord starts traipsing in with next year’s batch of renters without regard for your feelings or privacy.

Write Tracey at tbh15@pitt.edu. Read her blog at http://traceyhickey.wordpress.com.