Renting A Cheap Bangkok Apartment #PET FRIENDLY

When we left North Thailand with our dog Eden we had to find an affordable Pet Friendly long term rental somewhere else in Thailand. Fast. 

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Our previous rental contract in Chiang Rai ended early which didn’t leave us much time to search for a new home for us and our Cocker Spaniel. 

After searching the internet we found a cheap Bangkok apartment just 10 minutes drive west of the river in the Chom Thong area and it was Pet Friendly. At only £150 or $235 USD per month the Kozy Inn Bangkok was definitely the cheapest dog friendly condo we could find. Furnished to a decent and modern standard and in a fairly quiet location. 

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The Kozy Inn is part of a local mall complex that is still under development called the Kozy Korner Bangkok. It is family owned and has potential to become quite a trendy little development, but right now a lot of the premises are still unoccupied.

On the day that we moved into our cheap pet friendly apartment at the Kozy Inn we made a little apartment tour video before the room became messy with our belongings. You can watch that here to get a real sense of what the property looks like.

We were living on the 5th floor in one of the 35 sqm executive suite rooms with balcony. The bathroom was actually quite impressive for the price and we managed to function in the smaller space adequately. It took some time to get used to cooking our own food in such a strange layout, with the kitchen sink being outdoors on the balcony and our preparation table being inside by the front door. But technically cooking was not allowed inside the apartments anyway so we ended up doing all our basic dishes outside on the surface next to the sink. 

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There were times when a storm would soak the balcony with side swept rains making cooking impossible. So we’d have to delay dinner until the worst of it had passed by. There were a few takeaway leaflets in the reception downstairs for food companies and restaurants that could deliver take-out food. We had Oishi Japanese take out several times and it was nice to know that the option was available. Food / Restaurants options in the area were limited asides from a 7-11 and Tesco lotus supermarket that were very close by. However if you enjoy a good coffee, two of our favourite coffee shops in Bangkok were actual on or very close to the road on which the Kozy Inn resides. Read our 5 best cafes in Bkk post to read more about that.

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Laundry was quite convenient at the Kozy Inn because they had their own set of washing machines on the rooftop of the condominium. There are two top loader machine sizes, one was suitable for washing our clothes and the larger one was big enough to take bed sheets at the same time. 

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Each load cost between 30 to 50 baht and because we were on the 5th floor we only had to walk up one set of steps to get busy with the laundry (There is an elevator at the Kozy Inn, but it stops at the 5th floor and you need to ascend one more floor to get to the roof).  It was actually quite strange for us to do our own washing because it is usually so cheap to have a launderette wash everything we own in Thailand, we hadn’t done our own washing for 3 years.

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For some reason the dryer was never plugged in, but it is usually so hot and sunny in Thailand that we didn’t need it. To be honest though, having our washing done for us in the past was one luxury we enjoyed paying for because it really disrupted the day. But either way it was convenient to be able to wash our items within the building. 🙂

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As part of the rent it was an option to have the room cleaned by the staff once per month. Which was a nice touch even though we ended up deep cleaning the apartment ourselves before they arrived for some reason 😀 (apparently many other people do this too)

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Having Eden in such a small place did tend to make the apartment rather furry. So we were cleaning much more frequently than usual, having moved from a 3 bedroom house to a studio apartment in Bangkok. 

Working on our computers in the limited space was more challenging and we did find ourselves feeling a little more stressed out than usual. The fact that we were now in a bright and noisy city rather than a peaceful rural farm in north Thailand was obviously a contributing factor to those feelings. But despite all that we managed to find places around the room to be productive. 

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Walking Eden was another point of difference from rural farm life, but the car park outside the Kozy Korner was street dog free and had a little grassy central curb where our doggy could do her business. It was best to be outside before the sun got too hot in the midday. Especially with all the white surfaces around, sunglasses were often required.

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We stayed at the Kozy Inn for 4 months and because we were renting for a considerably long term as far as monthly rentals go, we were able to organize a little discount. The pricing system worked as follows:

The executive suites were the biggest rooms available and cost 8000 THB per month if taken for a period of over 3 months.

We were told by management that further discounts could be organized if the rooms were rented for longer terms.

We had to pay a 500 THB monthly fee to have a pet in the room. This was officially included on the monthly statements.

We also paid a 300 THB fee for a larger fridge to be provided as an additional extra. We cook at home fairly often so a larger fridge was essential and saved us having to buy one and then sell it later.

We decided not to have the LCD flat screen TV because we had no use for it, so the total monthly cost was 8800 THB.

Wifi Internet was available free of charge and came in at a speed of 10/1 mbps. Each floor of the Apartment block had its own dedicated router so the signal strength was quite consistent and usable. Having this was a bonus and reduced our utility costs and responsibilities considerably. Knowing that we were only staying for 4 months, it would have been difficult to set up an internet connection in our name for such a short period of time.

The Utilities had to be paid on top of the rent, and this is where the catch lies. Although the rent was very cheap, the cost of electricity per unit was unusually expensive. Most homes we have paid electricity for in Thailand have been billed by the Provincial Electrical Authority directly at a rate of around 4 THB per unit, at the Kozy Inn we had to pay the electric bill privately at 8 THB per unit. So our Air conditioning bill was literally double what we’ve paid anywhere else in the country. This was a problem because the apartment was simply too hot to not run the AC and live comfortably. So our electricity bill was consistently coming in at around 3800 THB per month, even when we were trying to economize with the AC units whenever possible. With that in mind we had to budget for around 12k-13k THB per month (including utilities) to live comfortably with a pet at this cheap Bangkok apartment.

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Despite the high utility costs, we still thought it was worth the value for money that the Kozy Inn provides. Especially if you are looking for a Long Term Rental with No Yearly Contract in Bangkok, which is quite difficult to find in Thailand especially with houses and also most Pet Friendly accommodations.

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You may be wondering why the photographs in this post don’t show full room shots, and the reason for that was a personal one, we wanted to remember the Kozy Korner experience in a way that we felt it when we were actually there. So we opted for a more photo journalist style approach with the photography. But if you want a cleaner idea of what the Kozy Inn room actually looked like then please view our Cheap Pet Friendly Bangkok Apartment Tour Video that is embedded above in this post. 

Moving to Bangkok was quite a shock to the system for us so we also decided to create a 30 day Daily Video diary documenting our move from the Rural North of Thailand to the Busy city. Watch the daily Vlogs here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list

This serviced apartment is also a hotel, so you can even stay a few nights and ‘try before you buy’. That’s what we did. Book a stay at the Kozy Inn here: http://www.agoda.com/kozy-inn/hotel/b

You can contact Kozy Korner management and organize a long stay by email : kozykornerbangkok@gmail.com

You can find the Kozy Inn and Kozy Korner complex on this map

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*Other Useful information

Pet Friendly Hotels in other parts of Thailand? – Looking for Pet Friendly Hotels in other parts of Thailand?

Bringing a dog to Thailand – The ins and outs of Exporting a dog from the UK to Thailand.

Finding A New Way To Live – Want To Know How We Make Money For This Lifestyle?

Info we have categorized under Pets – Other Posts Related to Edens Dog Life in Thailand. Including cute dog videos and some Pet Friendly Hotel reviews too.

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Did you find this post helpful? Thank us with Coffee and Cake

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We both love coffee! Why not ^treat us^ to a cafe lunch if you found this info useful.

Jmayel, Sacha & Eden El-Haj

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