On Sunday I will sign the lease for a new apartment. Provided that is if I can find another person to be a guarantor for me. I need two and I don’t have any idea who to ask. Native Israelis use relatives but for olim this is a much bigger issue if they don’t have family already here. My understanding is that asking work colleagues to serve as a guarantor is a no no. That doesn’t leave me with very many options. The way I had to get around not having guarantors before was to pay the whole year’s rent up front in cash on the day I signed the lease — and that has meant, in both of the two apartments I’ve rented that the landlords don’t pay to fix anything at all and I’ve had to foot the bill for fixing a hot water heater in this apartment twice, work on the electric outlets, replaced entirely the dead hot water heater in the previous apartment, bought a new refrigerator in the previous apartment when the one in it was discovered not to work and had to pay to have the old one removed and so forth. Still, not seeing any other options, I offered to do that with this landlord and he was like you are certainly free to do that but I still want two guarantors in case you didn’t pay the arnona or the electric or what have you.

Help! Any advice? Are there people who offer to be guarantors for a fee or something here? Anyone want to be a guarantor for me? Obviously I pay my bills.

The apartment is great. It is huge. It is in Bnei Brak on the border of Ramat Gan. It has an amazing kitchen, though I will need to buy a fridge. It has a little laundry room just big enough for the washer and dryer and standing there in front of it to put the stuff in –awesome to have the washer and dryer in the same room! It has a baby’s room that is not only big enough for a crib but also for a changing table, rocking chair, and small dresser. The second bedroom is big enough to fit the humongous Danish canopy bed –aptly named “the heavenly bed” in German (I bought it when I lived in Germany and have carried it country to country ever since — I love that bed!). There is a little enclosed balcony room off of the bedroom where I can put the litterboxes (not utterly ideal but manageable). It has an air-conditioning unit and ceiling fan in the living room which is big enough for me to put the bookcases as well as the sofa and coffee table and make a small home office in one end of it.

But I need a guarantor. Ack.