Hi, just wondering if anyone can help. We are looking for accommodation in the Mississauga area. At the moment we are checking out square 1. Just wondered if anyone has any insight on this area.

Also, we want to find temporary accommodation as we are on working visas whilst we wait for pr to come through. Most rented accomodation seems to be for a 1year lease. Just wondered if this is normal? Or if there are agencies with shorter term leases, all info appreciated

Many thanks

Tracey

Sorry - can't offer any help on the area you mentioned.

However, with regards lease length - 1 year leases are pretty much the norm in most large cities in Canada.

Sometimes you can get 6 month/short term leases usually if you're renting directly from the landlord or in a smaller town. If you rent through an agency/property management company the lease tends to be 12 months.

Even if a property is advertised as being a 1 year lease it's worth asking what the penalties for ending the lease early are - as many rental companies will let you leave before your year is over - the only penalty being you forfeit your security deposit (usually 1/2 a month's rent) or they may be willing to accept a slightly higher monthly rent for a shorter lease. We've experienced both this scenarios, so it never hurts to ask. Other companies are not so flexible and require you to find another tenant to sublease the apartment until the lease is complete - hence websites like www.sublet.com.

If you only want a short-term lease it might be worth checking it out and picking up the tail-end of someone else's lease rather than starting a new one of your own. Or, if you don't mind paying through the nose - google for "short term lease" and you should pick up apartments that are available for between 1 week and 3 months. (all of the usual rental websites also have search options for short term rentals too - www.viewit.ca, www.rentit.ca, www.rentalproperties.ca, www.rentcanada.com etc)

Good luck with the apartment hunting - OH and I have been through it a few times since moving to Canada and know how frustrating it can be. I just hope you haven't got pets.

Nic

Hi Jim and Nic, many thanks for that. We really just want to find our feet initially, and get to know the areas. We're wary of taking a 1 year lease only to find that the area isnt so great, or that we prefer somewhere else, or maybe our pr will come through and we can buy a house.

Lots of ifs. Hence the temp accomodation solution

I'll check out sublet. Oh, and we dont have any pets!

Once again, many thanks.

Tracey

Try the local estate agents - they have offered to help find temp accommodation for us. They seem to have inside info on people who are happy to take short term leases.

cheers, will do
Tracey

I take pictures around there when I want an image to exemplify "suburban hell". Whatever put the idea in your head that it would be an acceptable place to live?

Hi, i am an analytical chemist and was under the impression there is a lot of pharmaceutical companies near there. Hence the reason that we thought it a good base to find our footing.

Any other suggestions would be much appreciated.

Cheers
Tracey

Living around there would mean driving everywhere (even to fetch milk or the post), it's a caricature of Americana. For the same money you could live in Toronto, in an actual neighbourhood, while looking for work and then, if you wanted, move near to your firm.

Square 1 is the heart of the retail and office business district in Mississauga. It is circled by residential houses and condominium complexes. The area itself is only about 20 years old so you'll find it logically laid out in a grid pattern.

One year rental leases are normal.

The pharmaceutical companies you speak of (eg Du Pont, Biovail etc) are located in the Derry/Erin Mills area (NW Mississauga) - about 20-30 minutes away from Sq 1 in rush hour traffic.

Why would anyone voluntarily live in such a place? It's a concrete wilderness built on farmland; flat, treeless, astonishingly ugly and the streets don't even have curves. It makes Milton Keynes look charming and that's even before you see the city hall.

There are som short term (6 month rentals ) available in the West Side of Mississauga, done through builders, clean modern townhomes , short term rates are approx $1600-$1700 - PM me if you need more info

Same as those that choose to live in those dumpy, slowly collapsing, Victorian, money pits, surrounding downtown

You'll be meaning, character homes with amenities such as shops and pubs with hand pumps within walking distance.

Square 1 is grim. We stayed in a furnished apartment for a couple of weeks when we first arrived in Canada, on Hurontario and Britannia, just the other side of the highway from Sq1. Not a friendly neighbourhood: everybody drives everywhere, emerging from the basement carparks of their condos encased in their steel cocoons to go round the corner to the drive-through bank, take-out, whatever. Not much in the way of green space, few trees, acres and acres of carparks at the shopping centre.

Look South or West of Sq1 if you have to be in Mississauga.

How short-term is short-term? If it's for a matter of a few weeks and you'll be waiting for goods to arrive from UK it may be worth considering a specialist "executive let" short term place. It's way more expensive than a regular let, but much less so than a hotel. But if you're talking more than a month or so, you'd be better off finding an end-of-tenancy sublet as others have suggested.

I love MK......based on living there for 6 years I think it was the best place to live in the UK. Green open spaces, the grid layout, no traffic jams, the myriad number of parks and bike trails......and the list goes on and on.