Ready, Set, Rent! Apartment hunting in Chile

One of the cool things about this program is that I will have my own apartment, where I can do as I please, have people over, have carretes (fiestas) and keep my room as messy as I want.  (I put that in there for you Mom.)  The only complication is that I have to find this apartment first.  Currently I'm staying in a hostel with the people from my program for a month, and at the end of the month it's up to us to find housing.  A friend from the program and I are going to live together, and we want to sublet and live with Chileans.  It's not possible for us to sign a contract here since we have no bank accounts and no co-signer.  Finding an apartment in Santiago, a city of 6.5 million people, is slightly more difficult than finding one in Seattle.  Things that I have never thought about before have suddenly started to consume my thoughts.  Is the apartment close to a metro stop so I don't have to walk very far after dark?  Is it above the 3rd floor so people can't climb onto my patio?  Is the gas hot water heater with the pilot light located in the bathroom?  (If the pilot light goes out, the room will fill with gas and you will die.  It's pretty serious down here, and many people have died.  These have been outlawed, but older buildings still have them.)  Are the people that live in the apartment creepers?  Is there laundry in the apartment, or do I have to haul my dirty knickers to the laundromat?  You would think these would be pretty simple to find, but alas, I am still without my messy party palace.  So I continue to spend my days researching places online, calling the renters, taking the metro to look at what inevitably turns out to be something completely below my standards, and sulking back to my hostel disappointed.  It's absolutely exhausting!  But, on the positive side, I've been able to explore the city this way, and I've found a lot of really cool neighborhoods and places I want to go back to.  Now, I have also found the barrios where I won't be living, or returning to, if at all possible.  Santiago is a relatively safe city, but one person asking for my passport in exchange for drugs is one too many!  Aside from that, I have enjoyed taking the metro (subway) around the city and looking at different plazas, statues, markets, ect.  It would just be more exciting if I had an apartment to go back to...