Fire Update - Subhed Housing

Since all the apartment realtors in the area want a minimum of a 12 month lease, I can't really use them for temporary housing. A friend of mine who is an insurance broker (and who is helping clandestinely) suggested looking at corporate housing; the temporary apartments that companies rent for their employees when they have to stay in another city for a long time. Those places are willing to rent month-to-month, but they charge something like twice as much as a standard rental.

The other problem is that I live in the Bronx, which, among its other faults, happens to have fewer than the national average of corporate housing units. It's silly for me to live in New Jersey if I want to keep tabs on my house, and it makes no sense for me to live in Manhattan with a car, so I've been looking in my childhood stomping grounds of Westchester County.

And that's a big mistake. Moving from the Bronx to Westchester counts as a step up, as far as the insurance company is concerned. They'll help me find a suitable place to live, but they're not willing to pay for an upgrade. So we're at an impasse.

Meanwhile, the insurance company sent me information about a lovely two bedroom apartment on a particular block in the South Bronx. I forwarded them a clip from a Village Voice article which indicated that very same block was a notoriously violent drug zone.