Our method for picking a Canadian residence was about as meticulous as the method we used to choose the hostel: haphazard.

In total, we saw three places. The first was generously described as a “loft”. There’s obviously some cultural difference with the use of the word, as I would have thought “loft” meant like a nice mezzanine level or something. You know, like a New York loft. No, apparently “loft” here basically means “attic”.

So Bree and I were shown these bedrooms that more than gently reminded us of Anne Frank’s last residence. The first bedroom was of an OK size, but no window. The second room was much better, but… accessible only via a door in the first bedroom.

“Would you like it?” the realtor asked. “We’d need to figure out the many, many privacy issues,” was the reply – because hey, we just started looking and that might’ve been the best out there.

The second was a bit of a distance out of the city. To clarify, it was a subway to a station called Ossington, and then a 15-minute bus ride north. Beautiful, beautiful house – turns out the landlord is a renovator by trade, and had been living in the house and doing it up for a good while. But, his work needed him Downtown often so he was moving closer. With five bedrooms and a decent backyard, it was a very good-looking place. We were being shown the kitchen when this dude walked in from the backyard and put on his shoes. We assumed he was a tenant, and said hey.

“Hey!” he said, before he joined us and was shown the rest of the house. Because he was just inspecting as well, but had managed to talk his way into taking his shoes off in the backyard. His name was Neil, and he was a little too excitable; telling us that you just don’t get places like this, and hastily and excitedly agreeing with everything we said.

The landlord was telling us about the past tenants he’d had, including the ones that didn’t really work out – like the older person that was going to clown college full time. “Oh, I went to clown college,” Bree said flatly. With the perfect pitch and timing that two people who have been spending too much time together get, I pointed at the clothes she was wearing and said, “She even kept the outfit.”

Neil. Was. In. Stitches. And it wasn’t really that funny, it was just my standard level of funny.

We caught the bus back and checked out our third and final place. This one had been confusing to arrange: the emails were signed off Terrence, but the email address came up as Country Alex. And one room was in one house, and the other room was in the house next door – which belonged to someone else entirely but Terrence was filling them for conveniences sake. Following? It didn’t really matter in the end, because the rooms had kitchen sinks in them and looked like abodes that would be perfectly set as the backdrop to every slasher flick ever. You know, creaky floorboards, that sorta thing.

We chose the middle (“renovated”) house, despite its location, for a few reasons:

- We were offered a trial month, so if it didn’t work out we could just walk away.

- The rooms are really nice.

- It’s fairly cheap – a month here costs each of us less than the two weeks did at the hostel.

- There’s a backyard.

- It’s honestly not that far once you know where you’re going.

- It’s furnished and set up for travelers and students – everyone has their own separate fridge and locks on their bedroom doors.

- Neil was rejected for being a try hard with no input from us. Go landlord.