Apartment Hunting For the Chronically Ill
Apartment hunting in a city especially, is already a challenging and sometimes stressful task. Adding illness and/or disability on top of it makes the few things you were looking that were “wants” now to become “must haves”.
As a person who originally searched for an apartment prior to having to put into consideration my illness, I can share the differences of the things that were necessary for the new place to have after my condition progressed.
*While these things are going to be specifically for apartments, they could be applied to searching for homes.
The things I’ve listed below are specific to things I looked out for based on my condition and symptoms so these will differ person to person.
I also want to preface that everyone’s budgeting situation is going to be different, so I’ve tried to include alternate solutions to certain points if you are unable to either find a place that has all of these and/or it’s out of budget.
ELEVATORS
I’m beginning with elevators because I would say that this is the most non-negotiable for me and something that I can’t think of an alternative to.
If your condition impacts you in a way that you are unable to take the stairs, then I would say that elevators would be something necessary to have on your list when searching for a place.
The other reason that elevators are important is that they allow for paramedics to get up to you easily. Now, this is not to say that if you don’t have an elevator that emergency services can’t reach you-they definitely will be able to, but it just might take more time (and if the stairwell is narrow, they won’t be able to bring the stretcher up and might need to carry you down or find some other way to get you out).
I personally had to call emergency services 3 times to my last apartment, and we used the elevator every single time to get downstairs.
NO STEPS ENTERING THE BUILDING
If you are also someone who is either a wheelchair user, has trouble getting up steps, or has fatigue and blood pressure issues with steps, this is definitely something to keep in mind when looking for an apartment in a city.
Similarly, to the reason for the elevators, this can also help with emergency services getting into and out of the building quicker.
Perhaps if it’s only a few steps and/or the entrance includes a ramp, this won’t be an issue for you depending on your body’s needs.
AIR CONDITIONING/HEATING
This one’s a big one especially during the summer and wintertime. If you also have a condition that reacts to temperature extremes -you need your apartment to keep you warm/cool.
If you are unable to find and/or afford a place with air conditioning or heating I recommend seeing if there are places in the apartment with spare outlets that you could plug in a heater/air conditioning unit (or fans) from Amazon that you could switch out based on the season (so only one outlet is being used).
LAUNDRY
This is heavily dependent on your symptoms and what your body can do so if you struggle to be able to leave the house and/or even getting outside takes a ton of spoons, you might want to look into adding laundry in unit as something to have on your list.
Now this is a challenging and expensive thing in itself just for regular apartment hunting so there are a couple options you can choose if this isn’t possible:
Pick a place with laundry in the community/building. You won’t be having to go very far and can have the laundry relatively close by.
See and ask your landlord if you could install a unit in your apartment. You never know; some places have a hole for where a laundry unit could go so you might be able to get a stacked unit.
Search Amazon for smaller alternatives. Amazon nowadays has lots of technology like countertop mini dishwashers and things of that nature. You could see if there’s an option for washing clothes (dry them outside potentially or find another method) and save your larger loads (like bed sheets) for either a community laundry machine or a laundromat.
GRAB BARS + REMOVABLE SHOWER HEADS
This is a really simple fix if the apartment you like doesn’t include these. You can either ask your landlord if they can install it or if someone else can.
If they need some sort of “medical notice” that’s an easy note for your primary care to write and give you.
There are tons of grab bars and shower head attachments on Amazon that you can find for cheap that work really well.
Grab bars help you get in and out of the shower/tub and the removable showerhead can be helpful if you use a shower chair and/or can’t get certain parts of your body wet.
PACKAGES
How are packages getting to you? The reason I ask you to consider this is because if you also have medical supplies delivered to you, you may want to know how it’ll be getting to you.
For example, does the building have a mail service that will hold the package for you? Will the package be left outside? -What if it gets stolen or it rains?
Another reason to have elevators is how is the package getting upstairs?
I personally have a mail service that holds my packages for me and depending on who is working they’ll bring the boxes up to my door. If not, I will go downstairs and take a cart and have them load the boxes onto it and I’ll roll the cart up, unload, and bring the cart back down.
PROXIMITY
This may be less important for some and again, depends on what your needs are. You might want to consider looking nearby the place you work, or other places you frequently visit and if that isn’t possible then maybe look for someplace in close proximity to a subway station or bus stop that can take you to this location easily.
In Boston, there are not a lot of subway locations with elevators down into the subway so therefore I tend to opt for Lyft to get to destinations that I can’t reach walking due to my symptoms.
SAFETY
Safety is a must even when you aren’t chronically ill and/or disabled. Try to take into consideration what hours you might be coming home from work and chose a location based on this.
For example, I work in theatre and therefore walk back home in the evenings at around midnight.
There are a couple ways around this if you can’t get in a safer area:
If there are other “safer” streets to walk down to get to your apartment (even if they take longer) this might be something you can do to avoid more dangerous routes.
You could take a Lyft or some other service way home (however I wouldn’t particularly recommend using any subway after midnight).
You could bring a buddy- if you are working with a friend who lives near you, you could always walk together to get home.
INQUIRE ABOUT ADA
Lastly, this is an optional step that you might want to ask the landlord or building manager if they happen to have any ADA apartments.
I personally found out that my apartment was an ADA apartment when I went in to sign the lease.
ADA apartments have larger spaces in order for a wheelchair to be able to do a full 180 turn and not get stuck. This also means that the showers have grab bars and removable shower heads.
Doors will also be wider than the standard 3 feet doors in order for wheelchairs to fit through them.
This is also really helpful if you have to call emergency services frequently because they can easily fit a stretcher in through the door and into the apartment.
These are the things I had on my list when looking for an apartment and they are just good things to keep in mind whether or not they make it onto your list.
Let me know if you have any questions by filling out the question form below the article!