House-Hunting While Autistic, Part 1: The Criteria

My spouse and I have rented an apartment together for years, now, and the rental rates just keep going up, for less and less space, services, and courtesy.  I\’m sure in some places it\’s cheaper to rent rather than buy a home, but in our case, we figured out we could get about twice the space, for about the same price per month.  So by that metric, it only makes sense.

We don\’t have much illusions by way of expecting to get more money out of the home than we put in, although I\’m told emphatically that used to be the case.  Houses were an investment, people said, and you could expect to gain money if you took care of the house.  That honestly does not seem to be the case any more, even in the market type around here.  

In addition to paying less for more, we also wanted to live in a less populated area, in a different neighborhood.  I\’ve complained in the past about the apartment complex we currently live in, but in brief: it\’s loud (car horns, people shouting, children shrieking), at all hours of the day.  The apartment complex has changed hands four times in the last two years, minimum.  The complex\’s repair staff keeps changing, information keeps getting lost, and whatever remains seems to be mainly ignored.  The gutters sit clogged, month after month.  The roads and parking lots go unplowed, with never enough parking spaces to go around even in good weather.  The trees threaten to fall on the buildings near them.  And the public spaces are dirty, trashed, and get used for all manner of unsanitary and antisocial activities.  

I know most people put together some kind of vague criteria for what they want, and then dive into house-hunting until they find something they adore the look of.  That… was not how we did things.  I\’m autistic and detail-oriented, so I wanted to nail down what we wanted, why, and what things we could and couldn\’t compromise on.

This required a lot of talking, and involved some arguing and a bit of sulking at times.  Communication is not a strong point for either of us, so this was a lot more work than you\’d think, and a house has a lot of fiddly details.  Spreadsheets, word processing documents, and hours of verbal and typed communication went into the process.  

We first set some minimum requirements for what we wanted.  2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a larger kitchen, in-building washer and dryer, 3 prong outlets in every room, central AC/heat, basic appliances, and parking that\’s at least off-street.  Also, the house had to be livable already, we didn\’t want to spend weeks fixing up a home before we could live in it.  

After that, we decided on what we\’d prefer to have… but were okay with compromising on, if it came down to it.  We also set some additional \”wishlist\” items for an ideal home, which we weren\’t really expecting to find, but knew we\’d really enjoy having if we could get them.  In the l end, we opted to address several issues with these lists:

Sound Sensitivity: This is one of the reasons we wanted multiple bedrooms.  We technically really only need one to sleep in, but having a second to sound proof for a quiet space, or use as a home office, or have guests over in, was very important to us.  This is also why we opted to look for a place that didn\’t share walls, or only had one shared wall, preferably away from high-population areas, children, and other sources of loud noise.

Gastro-Intestinal Challenges:  Both Chris and I suffer from gastro-intestinal issues.  He\’s lactose intolerant, and I get constipated and moody if I\’m fed dairy.  I also end up suffering extra inflammation around the time of my period, and have bouts with diarrhea.  We\’re still figuring out what exactly causes all this, but in the meantime, it behooves us very much to have at least two toilets in the home so one of us doesn\’t suffer while waiting for the other to be done.  We also opted to look for a place with a larger kitchen, which will allow more complicated food prep to cater to special diets, as well as elbow room and ease of use.

Executive Functioning: While Chris and I could probably fix a home up using the Internet, money, and stubbornness, we knew that would be exhausting and time-consuming.  We decided to opt for a \”ready to live in\” place, rather than a \”fixer-upper.\”  We also wanted a place that had most, if not all, of the necessary appliances for living.  A washer, dryer, refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, etc, are all things you can buy post-moving in, but you have to price them out, and it\’s complicated and time-intensive to do so.  If it turns out that we hate one of those appliances post-moving in, it can be replaced.  But signing up to buy all those things was a deal-breaker for us.  It was already going to be hard enough to find a good home, let alone adding that stress on top of it.

Depression/Anxiety: This is another reason for the multiple bedrooms.  Separating oneself from the source of anxiety, or having a quiet place to go to think about things, can be a very important tool against depression and anxiety.  The second (or third) bedroom could be both a home office and a place filled with things I enjoy, like my lava lamps, decorative fountain, healthy snacks, and a comfy chair.

We also stipulated that we wanted a large enough space to entertain friends and family.  Having a comfortable place to invite people back to, whether that\’s just to chat, sip tea together, or host a bad movie night, we wanted to have the option available.  Finally, on \”ideal wishlist,\”, there was a hot tub.  I used to love having baths, but fell out of the habit when I went to college.  I\’ve since found I don\’t fit into most tubs anyway, so the issue has mostly fallen by the wayside… but soaking in hot water is well known as a relaxing thing to do, so we added it, just in case.

Time Management: I work from home, but Chris doesn\’t.  So we made sure to house-hunt in a relatively small area in order to be close to three important places.  First, Chris\’ workplace.  A long commute is a great way to ruin a perfectly good job.  Second, my parents\’ new home.  My parents moved to our area recently, and I wanted to be close to them so it would never be a problem to go visit.  Third, the local supermarket.  Shopping is already fairly time intensive, so being 15 minutes or less away from the supermarket makes for a much less frustrating experience.

We also decided to put preference on condominiums, rather than true houses.  The reasoning for this was that we\’d prefer not worry about lawn care and landscaping.  Neither of us likes that stuff, and it would be one more thing to worry about.  Bonus points if there was a recycling program and community trash pickup so we wouldn\’t have to worry about that, too.

Light Sensitivity/Seasonal Affective Depressive Disorder: I am both photosensitive, which is to say that sunlight and bright lights can really hurt my eyes, and prone to seasonal affective depressive disorder, meaning I need to get a lot of sunlight whenever possible or I\’ll be depressed.  These two traits are naturally and annoyingly at odds with each other.  So the compromise was to look for a place with at least one large, south-facing window… and to have a larger bedroom with windows that could be easily covered with blackout curtains.  On cloudier days, and normal days I\’m handling the sunlight better, I can sit in front of that window with my cacti, or even go outside.  On bad days, I can hide inside and draw the curtains, or stay in the bedroom. 

A copy of the house-scoring spreadsheet we ended up settling on is here.

Next week I\’ll describe the actual house-hunting, and why it was a lot more difficult than expected.