Super General Advice (the thread for advice without making a thread)

ngl that sounds Incredibly Fucking Sketch imo
if they don't have something in writing already Please Get That Sorted before you move in, it's really easy for verbal contracts to turn into he said-she said arguments if something goes wrong

 

List of important rental questions (I'm just taking these from my leases over the years, essentially, but they're important)

• What is the due date on rent each month/week?
• How many days past that is rent considered late?
• Under what circumstances may your rent increase?
• If you need to be asked to leave what is the time frame you will be given?
• If you need to leave how much notice will you need to give?
• Under what circumstances can eviction proceedings happen?
• Are your belongings covered under someone else's rental insurance or do you need your own?
• Under what circumstances can someone (the owner, your landlord, or someone contracted by them to do repairs) enter your space? If it's not an emergency how much notice do they have to give?
• What behaviors in your space are explicitly forbidden (I've had places that banned burning candles and incense, and ones that banned aquariums, or ones that had noise restrictions after certain hours, for example)?
• If there's a problem between you and another resident what is supposed to happen?
• What if any are the rules for the common areas?

I would also like to emphasize that you should ABSOLUTELY take notes during this conversation. I'm not saying that your potential landlord is taking advantage of you but if you do not have an explicit agreement, the possibility is there. If asked, they're for you because your memory is bad. If at any point your potential landlord seems to get upset about you writing down the terms you both agree to? Leave. Find another place to live. That's a really bad sign.

If you haven't already, it might be a good idea to take a look at the agreement between the tenants and the owner of the property as well, because many lease agreements explicitly prohibit subletting, and you can get in the middle of a really dicey situation that way.

 

If you can make sure to keep some sort of physical note of what the landlord says in your conversation with them. Personally, my landlord has had an extensive history of backtracking what he says and I don't want that to happen to you too.

 

Hmm... you know, I do have access to free legal advice through my school's Legal Services Office, and I was wondering if I could maybe take advantage of that. I already tried asking them for advice, but they can't advise me on anything unless I provide proof that the other party involved isn't a student here (they can't advise in student vs. student conflicts). And right now I only know Possible Future Landlord's name, which isn't enough to prove that they're not a student, since it's a really common name...

(For the record, I'm like 98% sure that they're not a student, since they're working as a teacher full-time, but there's a 2% chance they're taking some online classes here or something)

Would it be Cool and Normal for me to ask them for like...their birth date or phone number? When I see them later today? In a "hey, I have access to a school resource that could help us put a lease agreement together, do you want to use that" way.

Not that I'm 100% sure this is something the Legal Services Office covers, because I don't understand the law, but like...looking over lease agreements is like...something that people with law experience would be useful for, right...

 

Maybe ask the legal office if they can give you any advice on subletting agreements in a general sense? Avoid making it situation-specific, just something like, "I'm looking into subletting and want to make sure I'm protected as a tenant, what things should I be looking for in a rental agreement and what pitfalls/red flags should I be looking out for?"

 

today I restarted my laptop because I hadn’t done that in a while and when I logged back in my theme had been changed to the old windows XP theme (the window borders and start menu and stuff, not the desktop background). is this worrying or just weird? the laptop is like 10 years old so some weirdness is to be expected I guess.

 

I don't think that's too worrying. Some saved settings on older laptops/desktops reset after long periods without use, including themes and date + time.

Edit: was the date and time correct when you booted it up?

Edit 2: I read that slightly wrong, my apologies! Since you still currently use it, I'd first run a virus scan to be safe. (I personally recommend MalwareBytes!) I'm still curious if the date and time were right after the restart.

 

the date and time are correct! I haven’t noticed any other changes either. guess I’ll chalk it up to another desperate attempt by my laptop to beg me to stop using it to play minecraft and other games it absolutely is not qualified to run

 

I think a phone number is very much within the bonds of things you can ask for. The first things i exchanged with my current landlord when i set things up was 1) email address 2) phone number. you can also probably ask the Legal Services about some general rules and such about subletting, since that's probably a situtaion they encounter fairly often, what with students, so you can maybe get a general write up from them

actually i wouldn't be surprised if they have like pre-print forms for subletting so that you have a legally binding lease agreement that your landlord won't have to type up fresh

 

I'd go with the hoodie, having a spare is always good in case the one he has disintegrates, or maybe a T-shirt?

 

I'm not sure if this is up your alley but maybe getting him some of the PDFs he likes? I've also given someone who was into one-off games the PDF of Fiasco as a gift before

 

Footwear question!

I have a pair of Columbia winter boots I bought in 2015 and have worn through a bunch of midwest winters. They're holding up quite nicely overall, but I have a few small tears in the thin fabric covering the interior fill of the boot (all in the same spot on one boot, it's not like rips are popping up all over them). I'm not 100% sure what type of fabric, although the boot itself seems to be very similar in construction to these (apologies for the Amazon link), which suggests a "100% synthetic upper".

Anyway, I really don't want to buy new boots anytime soon, if possible, and I'm a little worried about these tears leading to loss of effectiveness re: keeping my feet warm and not wet when I'm tromping around Illinois in the winter. Does anyone have any advice? I've looked at some tape repair solutions, but I'm not sure if it would work, or if there's a better (cheaper? able to do at home without buying stuff?) option. Any insight appreciated!

 

Maybe you could get some of those pdf's and then have them laminated at ups, or fedex, or wherever near you does that, and then give those to him with some wet erase markers?

 

Spoiler: Resolved probably

I've got a question: can anyone give advice on shopping for a newish laptop?

My current laptop, is about 8 years old, and I've had it for 2 of them. It recently stopped displaying anything on its screen, possibly from complications of its age, it being powered for a while with not quite the right adapter, or other forms of not taking enough care with it. I can connect it to a monitor or tv, so I can access its contents and back things up, but it's now nearly am honorary desktop - attempts to use a cheap bluetooth keyboard and mouse to use it from the couch didn't go as I hoped.

So now I'm shopping around for recent, lower price range laptops - under a few hundred, 3 would be comfortable, 5-6 is a bit of a stretch. I don't know enough about refurbished machines to feel confident with that, so instead I've been checking lists like this and this and this for starting points: looking at the spec ranges, the mentioned pros and cons, thinking about which matter, and checking reviews for the ones that look promising.

Definitely want:
- is a laptop
- not an oversized tablet
- good cooling, don't want it running hot enough to hurt to touch
- decent battery life, more than 4 hours of active use
- decent display, good colors for digital art purposes
- can run games like Civ VI, Minecraft, and Witcher 3 without lagging to death
- headphone jack

Prefer:
- has an hdmi port
- not too much bloatware
- microphone jack
- backlit keyboard
- does not look like it's powered by molten mountain dew

From a few reviews I saw, Acer Aspire E 15 looked good except reports of the display not being great at color & bloatware in it - and i don't know if I could connect a wired mic to it. And I'm getting a little trapped down the overthinking hole - I know enough tech stuff to try being precise about the search, but not enough to do so confidently - or to diagnose if my current laptop could br fixed inexpensively.

Question on hold, impulse bought a refurbished that I think will work for me for now

 

mental health question, wasnt sure where to put this, can be moved wherever is most appropriate, nothing triggering or warning-worthy i dont think but spoilering just bc it is still Depression Talk(tm)

Spoiler

does anyone have any concrete way to deal with brain fog
like, feelings of unreality and fuzziness have been a persistent problem my whole life, and ive been ignoring it for basically ever, but its reached a point where. i am very uncomfortable a lot of the time. is it lack of good sleep? is it basically my brain being fucked from being depressed for so long? i know its not just a side effect from my meds (im on 125 of zoloft rn, it might go up to 150 though) bc ive had it well before meds, but it could be making it worse i guess?
idk
ive tried mindfulness stuff but it still slips away
i would just like to feel awake and like i exist
if anyone has any input or advice id really appreciate it

 

Unfortunately it could be all of the above. It is the sort of thing that has many causes. My brain fog was real bad during my major depression. Got worse while I was recovering. Then I hit a certain point in my recover that it just got better. I still have brain fog days, but not as often. And good sleep is essential. I often mentioned being tired to psychs, and eventually we worked out a med combo where I am getting good sleep reliably as well as the depression and anxiety managed.
It should be noted: docs are very reluctant to give sleep meds because they do create a dependency. They will usually direct you towards a sleep specialist first. I happened across a med that knocks me out during my search for depression/anxiety meds. It is a double edged sword med, but the reliable sleep does me wonders.
The other thing that helps is regular exercise(boo hiss it sucks I know). 30 min of cardio twice a week(if you don’t exercise, go til you are tired the first time. Add 5 min each week til you hit 30) does wonders on my motivation, focus, and energy. I really don’t recommend more than that unless you have other goals in mind that it could help with(I hate exercise so much man, but damn do I feel great the next day).
Tldr: talk to docs about it and see if they can help. Self care is magic and also a pain in the ass.

 

lowkey a baby gym rat so at least im doing something right :"") thank you i appreciate the input!!!

 

computer knowledge havers, tell me, would buying this computer be anything resembling a good idea? from what I can tell it doesn't exactly look good, but it looks like it'll play minecraft better than my 10-year-old laptop, and like I could maybe upgrade it in the future. some alternate possibilities are:

• https://maine.craigslist.org/sys/d/mexico-hp-laptop-156-model-15-da002dx/7047838090.html upsides: is a laptop, downsides: is a laptop and also slightly more expensive
• https://maine.craigslist.org/sys/d/freeport-cyberpower-pc/7036152485.html upsides: much much better, downsides: hanging on the edge of my price range, also kind of suspicious that they're selling it that cheap?
• https://maine.craigslist.org/sys/d/lewiston-midrange-gaming-computer/7029022727.html upsides: price is not the worst even considering I'd have to buy a hard drive, downsides: price is also not the best, I'd have to install a hard drive without fucking anything up :P