Scoping out apartments

Well I'm in a unique position as I am currently in the process of looking for new apartments. In my area they are fairly pricey, $600+ for a one bedroom. I have many things to consider such as whether or not electric bills would be included. One idea that crossed my mind was if the landlords would investigate the power consumption generated by a couple lights, not a good thing. Odor control would also be an important issue, but could be handled. Any advice from people with apartments would be greatly appreciated. I'm still a newbie so I'm just a little paranoid. I'm pretty poor so I might just have to go with a small one bedroom efficiency.

well depending on what kind of grow you are trying to do there is alot of options if your just tryin to grow one female at a time you can do that in a effency just a box in the corner no biggy or in a closet, i have a five bedroom house(i have 5 roomates) and right now one of them is at home working and i just have some boxes in his room and i grew about an ounce in 3 months not too bad for one plant in a tiny bo but you can do alot just have to make up your mind, with only a plant or two electric and odor shouldnt be a big deal since i would assume it would be a cfl grow but its up to you

Good question. I'm interested in a answer as well.

Yea, I'm gonna stick with a CFL grow to start out with. I'll probably go with regular old bagseed too, haha. Like I said I'm broke. I look at it this way, once I get set up I can grow for free but I would always have to pay for beer. This first grow I look at as a learning experience. If I get any decent bud at all it will have been worth it. Since it IS my own apartment I don't think I have to worry about making it super stealth.

IF you are using cfls, power use will not be noticable at all.

yea man with cfl's even in a small apartment elec. will be no problem at all and smell shouldnt be a problem with one or two plants either

Well I just got my new apt. today and I'm stoked. I was looking at all these apartments trying to figure out which one I wanted and everything. In the back of my mind I was figuring out how much room I had to grow some trees, haha. I made it clear that closet space was a top priority because I "had a lot of clothes" . This one I got has a seperate electricity bill, which I wanted. I remember a response to a question of power usage drawing attention. A lot of the big grow operations were busted when someone noticed that they were STEALING power. If you pay your bills in full on time the power companies will too busy counting your money to even really care what you do with it. I'm planning on just using some bag seeds to start out with, now I just need to find some herb... I'll start a journal when I can afford to start my garden.

good start Febreeze. your right, if you pay your bill on time. and your not using 600 dollar worth of electicitiy out of a studio. the power company will just sit back and count their cash like u said. My advice is, get some good seeds. Fuck bagseed man! A grower is only as good as his genetics. You could posssibly provide the perfect enviroment for your bagseeed, and it end up being some light ass air-bud shit. but if u have good genetics and good environment. things start to come together.

Well I'm moving in next week when the papers go through and everything. In the meantime I'm working on blueprints for the set up. Then have built in cabinets so I just need to figure out how to ventilate and regulate odor control. I'm thinking ona gel might be all I need for one or two plants.

FebreezeIt, PM me and I'll give you all the info about growing in an apt. As I did for almost 2 years.

invest in a turn key growbox.... even if its only like a 6 plant one..

and cfls are lame as hell...if all you care about is electricity...then use LEDS...they cost like 2 dollars a month with 24hr running..

Here are some general guidelines regarding "where to grow" from a paper i've been working on ...

The Grow Room or Closet

Before we can begin growing, we have to make some decisions regarding where to grow and what equipment to use. That's what this section is all about. But before we start making a shopping list and knocking out walls, let's decide where we're going to grow.

The ideal grow room should have the following qualities:

Clean - you don't want to give a lot of dust, mold, mildew, insects, or other unpleasant things easy access to your plants.

Climate controlled - you want an area that you can have some control over the temperature and humidity.

Secure - you don't want your garden to be accidentally or easily discovered. Some advice I heard was there should be no less than two locks between the outside and your plants. We'll also need to make sure we can control any odor emanating from the plants.

Easy Access to Water Source - this one is often overlooked. You don’t want to be running a garden hose through your bedroom or carrying heavy buckets of water up and down many flights of stairs. Not having easy access to fresh water can take the joy out of gardening.

Easy Access to Fresh Air - somehow, someway, fresh air must be able to enter the growing area, which infers a way to exhaust hot, stale and often very smelly air will be necessary.

Easy Access to Enough Electrical Sockets - provided it is convenient, heavy-duty power cords can be used to bring electricity to the garden. Often, it is necessary to add circuits to accommodate the electrical requirements.

Light-Tight - Finally, you'll want to be able to make your grow space light-tight. That means no light should be able to enter or leave the grow area. You want to keep light from exiting to prevent it from attracting unwanted attention. And no light should enter as to not disturb the plants photoperiod.

Fire/Water Proof- don't want anything easily ignitable in there. Also, a way to catch leaking water can save you much more than just money; especially if you have downstairs neighbors.

I'm sure a few areas sprung to mind. Closets, basements, attics and spare rooms all have their pros and cons. You can also purchase a grow tent. Building or modifying a cabinet is also a very popular option.

It is best to accurately sketch out the area you plan to use and draw in where all the components go.

Thankfully I don't have any room mates so I will be the only one around. I don't know if I could secure my cabinet individually. There is a wooden shelf against my far wall. The back is open so I can exhaust air out the back. I plan on using panda film (black and white) and duck tape to seal up the area. The specs of the spot are 24" x 20" x 48". The 48" is adjustable since there are multiple adjustable shelves. Given the small dimensions it looks like a hps or mh wouldn't be feasible. The T5 flouresent lamps are starting to look pretty good right now. My local hydro store sells these in the blue or red spectrums so I can switch for flowering. They are a small compact unit which go for about $30 for one. I'm just not sure how many will be necessary and if regular screw in CFL bulbs would just be a better choice. I'm excited and just a little nervous, but I guess that's to be expected. Any comments/tips would be appreciated, thanks guys!

Well I ran into some difficulties this evening. My first night in my apartment I was looking for a place where I could set up. Well to my shock I discovered I had black mold growing right in the spot I was going to use. I did a quick google search and sure enough it matched the pictures online. It turns out the wooden patio door is full of that shit too! I wanna raise some healthy girls so this is a big NO NO. I'm just glad I found this early on so I won't have equipment to move around and I don't have much of my stuff here yet. Hopefully the apartment people will take care of this shit ASAP so I can get on with my business, still kinda a bummer though. Secretly I'm hoping that I could somehow get a bigger apartment with more growing space outa the situation, haha. Turns out that some forms of the mold can be REALLY toxic, nice huh?

Unfortunately you run into this a lot with apartments. All they're going to do is paint over it. Which DOES NOT kill it. Get a spray bottle with a 50/50 bleach/water solution in it, cover up any carpet so you don't get bleach stains, and soak that shit down. Then by a gallon of Kilz Titanium Matte paint and paint over it. You can actually ask the paint place to mix a fungicide straight into the paint. I had to do this in my area because it was near a bathroom.