Now, one would think that with over nine million people in this area somebody somewhere along the line would have come up with an adequate way to house ourselves... or at least a way to ease the process. No. Finding an apartment in New York City is about as difficult as finding your only other pink sock after laundry day or your soul mate in middle school. Terrible.
Basically the whole finding an apartment saga goes something like this: You scour endlessly over websites like craigslist, looking for ANYTHING that is somewhat close to your budget. After finally finding a few that sound absolutely wonderful, you realize that they will probably rent within 2 hours and 12 minutes so you are directed to call a mysterious number. The man on the other end of the number tells you he is a real estate broker and he will meet you on the corner of Creepy St. and Asshole Avenue.
You run to the corner of Creepy St. and Asshole Avenue (because the mysterious broker NEVER gives out the real address!) and look for someone who you hope looks like this:
But in reality, the stranger on the corner who announces he's the broker usually looks like this:
After having 21.4 seconds to decide whether or not this person is a serial killer, you follow him to the wonderful apartment he promised to show you. This can go several ways...
1. He completely lied about the location. The apartment you thought was in the beautiful Upper East Side is actually a first floor apartment in Spanish Harlem next to an old Taco Joint.
2. He promised you a wonderful spacious apartment and it's huge... but it has no windows.
3. He's actually a serial killer.
Most of the time, the advertisement shows pictures that look like this:
And the apartment ends up looking like this:
Our apartment search has been a tough one. I've had brokers try to convince me that a closet with plywood shelves actually counted as a bedroom (Hey! Let's make the bathroom a bedroom too! My sheets would go great with this linoleum tile!) and we've seen basement apartments with backs to abandoned lots with drug dealers lurking in them. We've walked to the top of a walk-up to find that the "broker" misplaced his keys. We've been shown rooms with no windows or air-vents. We've been stood up, lied to, and pushed around.
"Oh look!" my roommate exclaimed while looking at a particularly horrible layout, "You can brush your teeth and pee at the same time! You just don't see that every day." We then hobbled up the rotting spiral staircase and found our way out.
"I don't EVER pressure people but... this 8th story walk up with the mini fridge and the bookshelf separating the 'two bedrooms' is going to go really fast. If you don't pay me $8000 right now you're probably just going to be homeless for a year," says the broker as we escape to the next horrible showing.
"This is awkward," says another broker while we wait in the hallway for the tenants to "freshen-up" as the neighbors blast techno at a deafening volume.
Excuse me, New York. I'm paying thousands of dollars here. I want running water and windows. I refuse to pay this much money and live in an apartment that looks like it is below a butcher-shop in a 3rd world country!
At this point your budget goes out the window and you've accepted that you're just going to have to be flat broke unless you want to live in a dumpster behind Chipotle. I mean, they do have good burritos...
Moving on with the new imaginary budget - and the adventure continues!
On a lighter note - There is a bakery down the street from me that doubles as a tombstone store. Yes, they make tombstones. For dead people. But apparently they also make delicious bread because they had a sale today and I got a giant loaf for $1. It reeked like nail polish remover in there... I still don't know why.
Goodnight everyone!
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