So you're thinking about staying in a stranger's basement for an extended period of time...

 ...Just kidding. Of course you are not thinking about staying in a stranger's basement. Who thinks such thoughts? Two months prior to Abby's internship in New Jersey starting, I would not have thought I'd stay in a stranger's basement for three days, let alone a month. But that is the thing about life- it can surprise you! You never know when circumstances lead you to a situation where you need to be absent from your present locale and have to find alternative living arrangements somewhere else for a time period. 

When I started to look for places to stay for a month, somewhere that gave us a lot of space was a huge factor. I didn't want to stay in a hotel due to only having one room and (likely) a not full kitchen. I wasn't able to find any extended stay type hotel within a reasonable drive of the place where Abby was going to be interning. And being fairly close was important due to the driving that I would be doing back and forth.

So when a basement rental opened up on one of the sites I was checking, I did a lot of comparing of prices and locations of other places I was considering. The basement rental made the most sense for all of the room that we'd be getting and it was fairly close (about five miles away) from where Abby would be doing her internship. The price per night was about the same as if we stayed at a fairly low tier hotel chain room. 

Here are some of my thoughts on staying in someone's basement:

1. Where there is a basement, there are spiders. Period. I know this about the basement in our house and I knew that it would be true in a house built even earlier than our house. I noticed a spider in one of the corners in our rental the first week we were here. It didn't daunt me. Then I saw one crawling in my suitcase. Like, over my clothes. Eeks! That was unsettling. But again, not shocking. Every time after that when I got something out of my suitcase, I engaged in the "spider shake down." This consisted of me visually inspecting the item for spiders, turning the item inside out to inspect that side of the item and then shaking the item in hope of dislodging a spider had I missed it during the visual inspection. It was an annoying effort but needs must!!

2. Where there is a basement, the sound of feet moving on the first floor will be heard. Probably. I say that because in our home, when I'm in the basement, I don't feel like I hear every footstep overhead. Maybe it's because our house is less than twenty years old? But in the rental, we heard footsteps above us. The sound wasn't terribly loud or annoying but it was unmistakable and if true quiet is something that is paramount, then a basement dwelling may not be the best option.

3. Whether it's a basement or elsewhere in someone else's house as a paid guest (though I would think basements with separate entrances would be the most common rental area), it's a little jarring to know that your space (that you're renting) is accessible by the owner of the home. In an ideal world, the owner wouldn't come into your space, but obviously the owner has access to it. If you stay at a hotel, housekeeping and other employees could go into your room or suite which ideally (of course) wouldn't be unauthorized. But if you felt like someone was accessing your space, there would be management and/ or the owner of the hotel with whom you could complain/ achieve redress. When you're in someone's house, the owner is same person who would coming into your space without permission. So that was a little odd.

4. I started this post back in June when staying in New Jersey and had everything written in it up to this point. For point number 4, all I had was "4." Now that it's August, I have no idea what point number four was going to be. Moral of the story (which I already knew...) is to document things when you are thinking about them, lest you forget!

Here are some thoughts on staying in the particular place that we did. I can provide the exact address to someone who is looking to stay in Teaneck, New Jersey but somehow I can't imagine that many people are looking to stay in Teaneck. (Again, though. Life can be surprising and you never know where you may need to stay.).

1. Overall, the basement dwelling met our needs and I think it was a good call to stay in the basement rather than rent a hotel room for thirty nights. We had an almost full kitchen- missing a dishwasher and garbage disposal. Not having the latter was more inconvenient for me than not having the former but it wasn't that big of a deal. 

2. The basement had a ton of storage space which was nice. There was plenty of space, period so we didn't feel cramped at all (well, except for in the bathroom. That was small). Regarding storage, there was a large walk in closet/ storage room that we used to store our suitcases. It had room to hang some of our clothes and then shelves (though the shelves looked a bit dirty to me and so I kept all of my non hanging clothes in my suitcase). What was a little odd, though I guess not surprising, is that the owner used about half of this space to store her (we think the owner was a lady living on her own? But we never knew for sure?) things. Obviously we didn't mess with her things but it seemed odd to have someone else's belongings in "our" space. 

3. We had access to a washer and dryer which was a huge bonus and what was a big deciding factor in choosing this place rather than a hotel room. 

4. The house was in a good location vis a vis the town and vis a vis where we needed to drive to get to Abby's internship. Regarding its location in town, we could walk to many businesses including a CVS, bagel shops (being in close proximity to bakeries that sold fresh bagels was one of the greatest things we loved about staying in New Jersey. Fresh baked bagels just aren't a mainstay of southern Ohio bakeries), grocery stores and restaurants. From our house in Ohio, we are also within walking distance of several businesses, coffee shops, restaurants, etc. which we do take advantage of and walk to from time to time but our town in Ohio is smaller than Teaneck so the businesses here in Ohio that we can walk to are fewer and farther in between. In New Jersey, I loved being within walking distance of numerous restaurants, bakeries and coffee shops; Abby and I took advantage of the proximity and patronized many of these businesses by walking to them. I should add that the weather was really good almost the entirety of the time we were there- it was never super hot or muggy so walking did not seem onerous from a comfort standpoint. 

5. The area, the town we were in and many of the other towns near ours, was very diverse. We heard all sorts of languages other than English and this was reflected in a variety of small, ethnic restaurants that were all over town. We tried several of these restaurants to try authentic (fill in the blank) cuisine. 

6. I liked being close by New York City but not in it!! I wouldn't mind staying in NYC if going for, say, a short visit. But I don't think I'd like to stay there for a month. The stimuli was... a lot in the city. Knowing the city was close by and a fairly short bus ride away was good for me. I'm just too small town, I guess. I'm glad that Abby's internship was in New Jersey so that it made sense to stay there!!

A few pics:

Our kitchen- I was curious as to what was behind those padlocked doors. Maybe some things are best unknown.... The refrigerator was not in the kitchen! It was located near the bathroom, down a hallway. It was not a big deal to not be in the kitchen. This house was obviously not built with basement renters in mind and things had to be retro fitted to make it work. The house was built around the 1920's.

Green was a theme! If you notice, the linoleum was a multi green color and the bedspread/ sheets were green, too. The bedspread. Yes, Abby and I shared a bed! It was not a big deal. We are two non movers in our sleep so that worked out well! 

Here I am posing with the chocolate that my sister brought with her when she came to visit us. I was the high bidder of two Lindt chocolate baskets in the silent auction for a fundraiser event that my sister was in charge of. I insisted that my sister keep some of it- mercy, I'd a had to be wheeled out of there if I ate all the chocolate. On second thought, I couldn't have been wheeled out of there due to being subterranean and all. My sister slept on a futon when she came to visit. She said it was surprisingly comfortable. 

This is in Ridgefield Park, NJ which was very near where our house was. Our daily walks took us into Ridgefield Park. Abby spotted this restaurant and requested that we eat here as she loves Mediterranean food. 

It was Greek to us!

Yum!

Fresh bagels at the local IGA. There was an IGA store about a mile from our place where I did most of our grocery shopping  (I had a quasi traumatic drive to a local Wal-mart (I'm being a bit dramatic but it was bad!) which was packed to the gills with people. It was such a bad experience that I preferred to shop at the local IGA despite its very high prices). This IGA was small. Like, it only had four aisles. Yet, it had fresh baked bagels everyday. 

Loved all of the history in the area where we stayed. I was walking or running one day and came across this Revolutionary War information placard. It was on the grounds of the local hospital.

We enjoyed most of our experiences in New Jersey (spiders and NJ drivers the biggest exceptions!).