My fiance and I have been looking at homes and apartments for rent mostly in Richmond. We were not finding much. One or two with what we wanted but we are worried about our pets being accepted. One dog, 3 cats, several caged animals. So then, we had an idea. Why not look in other areas? So we picked Charlottesville. Its close enough to home that we can visit, but its far enough away to be on our own. We looked on Craigslist and there are tons of really good ads. We found several we will be emailing. We know to weed out scams. (We already emailed a Richmond ad only to find out "they are in africa" "helping the sick children". They were asking us if we wanted to pay a few months rent in advance. Yea, right.)

So I have a few questions for those members that live in that area. We already know there are stores down there where we can transfer from our current jobs.

How's the area?
What's the cost of living like?
Any reptile shows around there?
Any community colleges?