In regards to rent it all depends on where you're staying in Montreal. I suggest taking a look at PadMapper(http://www.padmapper.com/) to help you find a place to live.
For internet I'm using TekSavvy (http://teksavvy.com/en) they seem to have the most affordable plans when it comes to what you're paying for and what you're getting.
Over the summer I taught myself how to code (PHP). The route that I took was the following:
1) Watch screen casts without doing any coding and just understand the basic concepts and syntax. This was done via Lynda.
2) I then went to the tutorial Zend has on PHP 101 and did each and every exercise until I understood it.
3) Lastly, (this I am still in the midst of doing) is attempt to replicate a website or a certain functionality of a website. Meaning apply everything you just learnt from step 1 & 2.
By going through those three steps I've become pretty good at coding and now it's all about practising and to continue putting together things I've learnt into real stuff.
Some AMAZING resources that I highly recommend checking out (no matter what language you're learning is:
http://stackoverflow.com/ <-- Amazing Q&A site that SHOULD have the answer to just about any problem you run into
https://github.com/ <--- Take a look at other people's projects and see how they are doing things in the language that you are learning.
The last and final tip that I can give you is stick to it and don't give up.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/06...