Moving on up?

I want to move. After a weekend of police sirens, kids smashing bottles and cars outside the window, plus a domestic violence incident two doors down, I don't want to live on Hepburn Road anymore. I love the little bedsit, but its not doing much for my mental state. Plus there is a woman/she devil, who keeps shouting at me from her window down the road whenever I walk Jack, letting me know in her terms that I am not allowed to walk dogs on her street. She now has me cornered as she seems to live at two properties at either end of Hepburn road and makes it known that I am not welcome "round these here parts".

So, I started looking on gumtree for a new house for myself, my boyfriend and my dog. Its very exciting imagining what your future home could be, where it could be and how many potted plants you could fit on the windowsill - plus how many people you could fit into the living room for a house warming party.

However, the pleasant dream of new carpets and an actual kitchen turned to grey dawn reality when I realized that the prices seem to have gone up as the job market has gone down - and I was looking at a hefty increase in rent if I want to move out of the bedsit. I had to scrape the idea of getting a garden along with a flat (a garden would make life so much easier, as walking Jack every three times a day in the pouring rain is not the best way to spend the winter) and focus on a one bedroom place. Hopefully with a washing machine...

We also had to scape moving out of stokes croft. Anywhere else on the Bristol map becomes doubly expensive the minute you step out of the invisible boundaries of stokes croft/Easton and St Pauls, and so even before I could consider leaving my station and inching towards the grand banks of Clifton I was shot down. So we decided to look at a few flats around Stokes Croft (but away from the fat woman who lives in two houses) and looked at two properties, one down City road and one above a kebab place on the main stokes croft road. The first one was 475 pcm, and I didn't have a very good feeling about it. It was further down city road and it felt run down and tired. If a road could be given medication, it would be on anti-depressants. The flat was very big, and came with a real kitchen PLUS a dish washer (Josh's eyes lite up like a child at Christmas when he saw it) but I just didn't like the look of it. The next flat was much better, even though it was almost half the size of the one on City road.....but it was that much closer to the Centre, and for that reason it felt that much safer for some reason. Plus it was that much closer to the 24 hour boozer.

It is also 475 pcm, but I think between us we can afford it....and it has two rooms, so I can get away from the Jack and Josh every so often and watch 'Lily Allen - from Rags to Riches' on 4od, without contempt from the boys.

I have handed in my guarantor and paperwork - but they are asking me to earn 14,500 per year which is crazy! Surely most people on minimum wage cant afford that, and I'm sure that people who do earn that wont want to live above 'chicken lickin' on Stokes Croft High street.

I'm just waiting for the call to let me know if I've passed the rent agreement test, if not, I'm out of pocket 200 quid for agency fees. Its a cruel world for the poor and needy!