While I am a full supporter of making the bed daily, I would hardly call an unmade bed, "nasty."

A filthy apartment would make me worry about bedbugs, although apparently those nasty critters like clean apartments too. My last landlord tried to show my apartment as I was moving out (after ten years!). There were boxes everywhere and the place was a disaster, so they just gave up until I was out. Maybe if someone is moving, tidiness is just not a priority.

Not seeing the bones and potential of a place = losing money and opportunities. A few days after closing on my first apartment, which I had bought based on 1) location, 2) location and 3) improvable layout, I got the keys and went to see it. I sat on the empty bucket I had brought for cleaning, and I cried. Five people had lived there. It was horrid. Patched linoleum in different shades of blue and green, missing bathroom tiles replaced with non-matching tiles (although to be fair, nothing matches discoloured brown tiles with a pink flower motif), paint jobs done around wall furniture... Seven years and a 3K reno later, I made 60K on selling it.

It's different when you rent and can't fix much yourself, but acceptable cosmetic changes should not hold anyone back.

I'm with wally.

Hunting for condos in my area was an exercise in imagination. I had to look past ho-hum layouts, awful 70s and 80s decor to see the potential in the condo I finally bought.

I bought based on the building, the locations and the amount of light. I had to look past some pretty ugly carpet and the most ho-hum of kitchen and baths.

When I was touring apartments for the first time, I saw one apartment that had used q-tips all over the floors, and a dirty pile of clothes in the attic. Needless to say, I didn't rent it. Another one had a meat dish sitting on the coffee table for what had looked like days. That one didn't make the cut, either.

The one I did take had a sink that would spit up bubbles from the drain from the apartments above. They smelled like sulfur. We named the sink "Ted", since he was a vocal member of our apartment. I had to threaten to call the health department before the landlords fixed it for good.

When we were looking to buy a house "back in the day" before HGTV & home inspections I was appalled at what people (& realtors) left out. Some of the worst were obviously what are today called hoarders. The picture I still haven't gotten out of my mind was the large floater left in the open lidded toliet.

I worry about what gets left behind when messy tenants move out. Smells, dirt, mold, rodents... one real estate agent showed me an apartment that had just had a pipe burst and there was broken tiles and mold all over the floors, and the smell was horrid! It was an otherwise fine apartment, but there was no way I'd have ever rented knowing that there had been mold there. I used to work for a company that remediated mold and I know that the work can cost thousands of dollars. I just couldn't trust the guy to shell out the money to get it properly remediated. Gross!

Filthy is one thing, but being able to see past simple messiness or things not to your taste helps immensely in being able to snag a good deal.

I chose my apartment for the layout. Great eat-in kitchen, nice sized living room, ok sized bedrooms. The details were not great (bathroom has never been updated) but you can't have everything.

Of course you should look past the mess and bad decorating choices! But sometimes that's easier said than done. Unless you're someone with a great eye, buying a place based on a "vision" could be a gamble. Sometimes you need to "see" what you're getting. But if you know how to look past the clutter, or the ugly wallpaper, or the dirty carpeting, you might just be rewarded with the deal of the century. I'm actually a sucker for a great fixer-upper.

Renters in Germany can ask to rent for free for a couple of months in exchange for fixing/updating an apartment. Sometimes the landlord will pay for any materials required.

Keeping that in mind, an apartment from hell can become a great (financial) deal.

Sooso, I did this with my first apartment in the 1980's. It was a lovely old duplex apartment (fancy way of saying they took an old home, split it right down the middle, front to back!). I had great light and was in a decent neighborhood and had lilacs all along the windows outside!

I ended up recaulking windows, ripping up the orange shag rug & refinishing the white pine floors. Only did cosmetic things in the kitchen & bath, but it was so charming. In 3.5 years, my landlord raised the rent once, a modest $15.00.

I am all about looking past cosmetic stuff to see the potential in a place! My lovely current apartment was painted all kind of hideous colours when i first saw it. The previous tenant had painted the whole kitchen an ugly blue and when i say the whole kitchen, I mean all the wood wainscoting and window and door moldings and everything!! I spent weeks painting every room before I moved in!

Other people may have seen ugly peeling paint... I saw the freedom to do whatever I liked with my space! Since the landlord clearly did not care.

Also, you might be able to get better deal on an ugly place...cause of all the people who would pass on it due to cosmetic problems!

I can't ignore mold and cigarette smoke. Bullet holes are also a deal breaker. Always check the water pressure, temperature and drainage issues.

Do not take an apartment that is dirty, even if clearly, it's the tenants who are messy. Ask yourself this: what kind of landlord would show you a messy apartment, either in photos or in person? The answer is a bad landlord, that's who - a landlord who will let people into the building based on if they have the rent to pay, not what kind of tenant they are; and who doesn't care about the upkeep of the building or the health and well-being of other tenants.

I had a landlord I called a "yuppy slum-lord." He lived in a newly-built million $ home a 1/2 mile away, but let my 2-flat fall into disrepair to where it could have been shut down by a number of city departments and either ignored dangerous situations or did stuff on the cheap. I found the list of stuff they promised to fix as soon as moved in, when I moved out years later - they never did any of it.

And...the apartment was filthy when I moved in - spent 2 weeks cleaning it...should have known...

@ mstesla love your comment.

I'm forced to use my imagination every time I move. After all, what is a new apartment just after you've moved in but a load of dirty rooms than need to be cleaned and are piled high with boxes and junk? Mental tidying may be a woman's job...that could be why lots of men (not all, but lots!) have so much trouble with it.

Yes, and no. I've toured really nasty apartments (in college), one where the guy couldn't be bothered to even get out of bed or hide his bong when we came through (didn't rent that one!)

However, after my ex-boyfriend (who I was living with) and I broke up, I found a new place and he lived at our place until the lease ended. The place was trashed during the time he lived there by himself, and even though it was a really cool looking apartment in a historic building, it probably looked awful to whomever toured it.

You have to take these things with a grain of salt. Look at the space, the condition of it, the other tenants. Not the stuff of someone else that won't be there when you move in.

As a renter, I've never even SEEN an apartment that hadn't already been vacated and cleaned.

As an apartment manager, I didn't even try to rent out an apartment that wasn't empty, scrubbed clean, and repainted. (I never had trouble finding tenants, and that was pre-Craigslist.) I figured that someone willing to take a dirty apartment probably wasn't going to keep the place as clean as the property owner liked.

I'm with Stiletto. Looking at an apartment that had an occupant still there has never happened in all my years of renting and would feel like a violation of their space. Similarly, I'd be wondering if the landlord would be bringing people through when I'm still living there and that's something I'm DEFINITELY not going to put up with.

Looking at homes with my parents was always excruciating though. My dad can't see past the ugly wallpaper, dated carpet and clutter in the kitchen. My mom and I see good bones, natural light and possibilities. There was always an argument between them, mom always won, and she was always right.

In NYC, occupied apartments are shown all the time for rent and for sale. No landlord wants to lose any month's rent and no owner wants to move unless he/she has to. Although, it's up to the discretion of the broker/owner to decide when is a good time to show. Clearly when someone is in the process of moving out is not a good time.

It really depends on whether you are renting or buying; I rent, so I'm never able (or willing) to renovate. I've passed on places that had really old, outdated kitchens or bathrooms, but ittle things like ugly paint or light fixtures are easy fixes I could look past.

Unfortunately on my most recent apartment hunt, the vacant apts were horribly filthy. Mold all over the bathroom, cobwebs, etc. I couldn't get my germaphobe guy to look past that.

I once looked at an apartment while the current tenant was present, watching TV. The living room was a shrine to all things Disney, while the bedroom was decorated with gay bondage posters.

I lived there for two years (with my own decor). It was a great apartment.

WEll what about the opposite. I rent out a room in my house and i always make it totally impeccable when tenants come to look. It never looks like that again after the first day they move in.

If we're talking about renting, as important as location and interiors, is who manages the building and who is responsible (onsite) for repairs, emergencies, etc.

Instead of focusing on the decorative aspects of a building and apartment alone, consider how the whole building is maintained and what problems (look them up online or at local govt agencies) have been filed against the building in local housing court, and local agencies.

Talk to people who have lived in building for real history. Find out how long people have lived there and the type of issues that have come up (extended time to make repairs; poor quality repairs; hygenic issues, etc.)

If a super doesn't live in the building, he and management have less incentive and sense of urgency to get things done quickly.

Find out what the building maintenance schedule is (how often are water tanks emptied and cleaned, lobbies and laundry rooms cleaned, when do exterminators come, etc.)

We have friends who live in a great area, with a great apartment, in Brooklyn. Unfortunately, it is owned by a large corporation that has become known for how poorly it maintains the building (too big to sue and win, alas. Housing court is even intimated by this organization!).

The super managed to flood the building (long story but he is incompetent) and that resulted in the two elevators being out of service. They "estimate" it will take two to three weeks for the 80-apartment unit to get the service back. Meanwhile, people of all ages and health conditions have to hike up and down stairs with food, laundry and luggage. Think you could do that every day for several weeks? Several times a day?

If it's a smaller, privately owned building, you really want to know who owns it, the financials, how they've paid their bills over the year, how well they work with tenants to get fixes done in a timely fashion, etc.

Don't fall in love with an apartment until you have really thought about what it's like to actually live there--especially when things go wrong.

Spend time looking around the building at various times of day to see the traffic and noise patterns. To also see who lives there.

And don't be fooled by a glossy appearance. We have other friends who live in a luxury building. Their neighbors include drug dealers, prostitutes, etc. They may dress better but their "businesses" bring people into a building that put others at risk.

It's all too easy to focus on the wrong things, and miss the big details when apt hunting in the big city...or anywhere.

Also, do not be turned off by a building that requires extensive check into your financials, etc. That's generally a good sign because they are not just taking anyone who shows up with $$ in hand. You want a building where people's prior references are checked. Where the company is looking for folks who will maintain the apartments, not cause trouble for their neighbors and respect rules of habitability.

And we're not talking about discrimination here. We're talking about buildings where people are looking for responsible citizens.