STRANGER THAN FICTION: HOME HUNTING NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART

Nothing like an apartment hunt to stress that there's no place like home.

There's a new psychological term I'd like to share with you. It's "house envy." Remember, you heard it here first.

All my friends are buying houses. They're leaving that apartment pony ride behind and jumping on the bucking bronco of mortgage payments.

Meanwhile, I'm making voodoo dolls of my neighbors and performing weird rituals at night.

I have a couple dolls for the girls across the hall, who pile up paper bags of trash outside their front door. They've got a dog in there, but I never see him being walked. I don't expect they'll be receiving that coveted Good Housekeeping Award anytime soon.

There's a doll for the frat boys whose friends keep taking our assigned parking place, then leaving a trail of empty beer cans from their vehicles to the apartment door.

There's another one for the nut who lives next door. She keeps calling to invite me to yoga lessons and her "Cooking with Tofu" class. Other times she sees me as her stand-in therapist, someone who wants to listen to her ramble on about "taking a space of power" and "leaving behind a space of weakness."

A year ago, the Other Half and I had about three hours to find a place to live between accepting jobs in Pensacola and flying back to Cape Girardeau.

We ended up in this overpriced haven for spoiled college students, who don't think much of a plus-sized adult who likes to rain on their parades with notes like: "This complex has assigned parking spaces. Have an intelligent friend explain the concept to you."

It's easy to complain. But it's hard to pick a community and say, "This is it. This is where I want to commit myself to living for the next several years. Even if something happens to make me hate my job, I've got to stay here. If the toilet backs up, it's my problem. If we have a rainy summer and the grass grows quickly, it's going to be me out there cutting it once a week."

So, still suffering from house envy, we started looking for another place to rent. There's nothing like looking at rental property to make you appreciate your parents' home and wonder why you ever left.

The first place was an overpriced, undercleaned duplex. The carpet color was Curiously Stained. The linoleum had cigarette burns in it. The drapes were hung in 1967 and hadn't been taken down for a good cleaning since.

That was fine with Mr. Half simply because the place had two bathrooms. Men want to go everywhere: In the yard. Along the highway. Between parked cars outside of nightclubs. The idea of having a bathroom on each floor of the home was overwhelming to him.

"Do you allow pets?" I asked the landlord. "We have a male and a female, both fixed."

"Weeeelllllllll," he said thoughtfully. "If this was new carpet, I'd have to say no. But since it's about 50 percent gone, I guess I'd let you have cats in here. I'd have to get a $200 deposit, non-refundable."

Hmmm.

A. The carpet was 100 percent gone.

B. Why do landlords naturally assume that all renters enjoy walking around in animal waste?

C. A deposit is, by nature, refundable. That's what the word means. Get it?

The next place told us they only took female cats. "Do you pull up their tails and look when we move in?" I asked the rental agent. "Oh, no!" she laughed heartily. "We make you bring written proof from a veterinarian!"

It was a great place. We called the vet about giving Bosco a sex-change operation, but he said he wouldn't perform it until the cat had time to dress in drag and really think about the implications of life as a female.

At the third place, we showed up at the same time as another couple. We raced through the apartment, loved the layout, loved the two bathrooms, loved the price. By the time we got back to the rental agent, the other couple was handing him a $400 deposit.

"Looks like they're going to take it," he said. We have to give our current landlords 30 days notice that we're going to terminate our lease.

The deadline is a week from today. It's not looking good. Maybe staying here will be all right.

After all, I've got my dolls and pins. And how hard can chicken blood be to find, anyway?

~Heidi Nieland is a former Southeast Missourian staff member who lives in Pensacola, Fla.