Twenty-six years later...

My first rental in San Francisco cost three-hundred dollars per month. I slept in what had been the formal dining room. My two roommates had the actual bedrooms. There was no parking, no on-site laundry & no back yard access. The laundrymat was on the corner, and Golden Gate Park only two blocks away. Street parking in the neighborhood was atrocious, however. The only spots seemed to be along Fulton. If you left so much as a speck of valuables in your car, or what might have been construed as valuable, then you could bet that your car would be broken into overnight.

The last place I lived in, some ten years later, cost five-hundred dollars. The gal who owned it was an old friend who had come into a bit of money & was able to buy a small-yet-lovely flat in the Mission just off 24th street. I slept in what was once the living room. The parking spot for the upstairs flat was just outside my bedroom window. The neighbor would usually come home quite late at night, and the sound of her car locking with a BEEP! BEEP! consistently woke me up.

Don't ask me how much we currently pay in rent. It's obscene to the point of making NYC rents look affordable. We may be paying a mint, but with that comes a proper bedroom, a garage, and a washer/dryer combo. -still no back yard access, but, instead, a small deck. Good times.