Unlike rented houses, rented apartments — especially here in East Austin — are likely to come new-ish, and new-ish means studiously wiped of character. There are no quirks in these buildings. Nothing that makes no sense, nothing placed there out of love or a moment of misguided inspiration, for future tenets to laugh at and balance beer bottles on. In one of my old houses, an upstairs sunroom sprouted a spiral staircase, that led to a skylight, that opened onto a DIY roof deck, that teetered over the city. I loved it. I moved into that sunroom and shivered through winters and sweat through summers and threw concerts on the tiny deck overhead, listening to friends’ music floating away across the rooftops while constantly worrying my ceiling would cave in