I've got the black mold, pop

We were going to be living in the basement apartment of a friend's house.  There would be three single men living upstairs, and us living downstairs.  It was very cheap, convenient, and pet friendly.  We were excited to get moved in and start school.  We knew after we got back from Texas that it would be a few weeks before we could actually move in as we waited for the guy living downstairs to move out.  This was fine because we wanted to go see family and we were in no hurry, school didn't start for a few weeks anyway.  Well when the guy was going to move he was cleaning and found mold in the kitchen.  Not just a little bit, I'm talking an insane amount behind the stove and under the sink.
But maybe you are reading this and thinking, "mold? Thats not bad, just clean it with some bleach".  Oh no my friends, not the Black Mold.  Here is a snippet from wikipedia about it:

Depending on the length of exposure and volume of spores inhaled or ingested, symptoms can manifest as chronic fatigue or headaches, fever, irritation to the eyes, mucous membranes of the mouth, nose and throat, sneezing, rashes, and chronic coughing. In severe cases of exposure or cases exacerbated by allergic reaction, symptoms can be extreme including nausea, vomiting, and bleeding in the lungs and nose.

via

Needless to say, we were scared about living there.  The landlord said they would have it fixed soon and so we didn't unpack any kitchen or living room things and moved them all to the spare bedroom or to our room.  It was so crowded.  After a solid day of a few workers coming to clean it up {aka rip the entire kitchen out}, they were gone and we thought it would be fixed soon enough.

So from August 28th to September 25th we didn't have a kitchen.  Fortunately the upstairs had one, so we could go eat up there, but I felt bad for the single boys upstairs.  They didn't plan on having a girl roommate.  The first week or so we thought it was all going to get fixed so we waited on buying groceries thinking we could hold out a few more days.  As weeks passed, we knew that eating out and eating triscuits and string cheese would not cut it much longer.  It was such a bad situation.  Finally we got word that the homeowner was going to fix it, but that everyone had to move out asap.  Frantically, we started looking for new places to live.

Before: The kitchen before the demo.  This was all we ate for a good while.  It sucked. 

After: Completely gutted.  It sat this way for most of the time we were there.

It was hard.  There were less places than there would have been 2 months ago because school had already started and people were settled.  And to top it off, there were even less places that allowed pets.  We were so stressed.  We would go to school, come home and house search, go look at places (most of them were awful), and then come back to our cramped apartment with no food to eat.  We were both perma-grumpy.  We found one basement apartment in Springville that was nice, with a small backyard and supposedly pet friendly.  We instantly liked it and were ready to sign for it on the spot, but the lady had a few more people coming by to look at it.  Honestly, we just wanted to be settled.  We found out a few days later we didn't get it, and it was mostly because of Sally.  Why would you say that you allow pets, and then tell us that we didn't get it because of our dog??  Doesn't really make sense.  But looking back, I'm so happy we didn't get that place, because a few days later, Randal found the place we are in now.  And let me tell you, we LOVE it here.  Don't worry, I'm working on a post of pictures of our new place that will be up soon.