four ex-students avoiding the real world

Brooklyn-bound.

Well, apartment hunting in New York is a bitch. Here’s my wisdom.

You’re going to use Craigslist first because that’s the most obvious option in your mind, and there will be a lot of tabs open in your browser and all the HUGE WINDOWS, LOTS OF LIGHTING, NEWLY RENOVATED KITCHEN, GORGEOUSZZ BUY BUY $!@$%^ listings will start running together in your head. You’ll learn that “cozy” really means “you can’t fit a full-sized bed in here.” And “we have a really sweet cat” means “we bought this cat out of guilt from one of those Animal Haven trucks in SoHo and now can’t get rid of it but we will force you to not be allergic to it.” And when it says you will live with “creative people” that means 20-something, bearded art school grads who may or may not make rent and who take on “lovers” and seriously use the word “lover.” You’ll be afraid of calling people at first or emailing because they’ll just be numbers to you or thick accents. At first, you’ll be timid. You’ll search month-by-month room sublets because the idea of committing to longer than that is scary. You’ll visit a bunch of randos in Brooklyn who offer you their wiry couches for $600/month (not worth it) with a 57-minute commute into Manhattan with three transfers. You won’t take it. You’ll find one seemingly new apartment and freak out that THIS IS THE BEST, CLEARLY. You’ll be overwhelmed by terms like “credit checks” and “guarantor” and muddle through. Then you’ll wonder why the broker won’t let you see the lease. You’ll get confused. Your parents will ask pointed questions to which you realize you have no answer. Then the broker will call you and tell you you’re a racist and he doesn’t want to do business with you because you think he’s just a “sketchy black guy.” Right.

So, Craigslist is exhausting. You’ll think you’re shopping for apartments with one friend but she’s got different goals than you, so you start shopping around with the friend of a friend of a friend of a friend whom you JUST met. The two of you find a place in a somewhat-sketchy-but-what’s-the-difference-between-New-York-and-sketchy-you-can’t-tell-because-you-have-no-real-sense-of-sketchiness-due-to-your-sheltered-suburban-upbringing area of Brooklyn. It’s overpriced, but you don’t know it yet, and you walk around the neighborhood for hours and are tired and just think maybe THIS IS IT. You’re all set. You call your parents. You prepare paperwork. Then you show the apartment to your friends who already live in the city and they scoff at the pricing.

Then you doubt everything.

You want to cry. You’re also trying to apply for jobs and the anxiety of continuing to live on your friend’s futon is making your eczema flare up.

The friend you are staying with’s boyfriend offers up his ex-roommate who is also a broker. You meet with him one day to look at places. One apartment is in no condition for move-in. Another is $490/month per person. You freak out again. WHO CAN BEAT THAT PRICE? That’s crazy! The rooms are really small, and maybe it’s not a great place to go out after dark, but that price is so tempting. You’re at your job checking coats at a fancy restaurant and watching people spend so much money on wine and cheese and you think, if I pay $490/month, maybe I could eat here once a year. The possibilities are endless. And God, someone could take that apartment AT ANY TIME. Everything is so urgent. You have to be ready to pounce.

You fluctuate between not knowing if you’re expecting too much and wondering if there’s some magical apartment out there that you’ve narrowly missed. And you keep wanting to throw up your hands and call it a day. You meet that friend’s boyfriend’s broker again and start to feel weird. He tells you to meet him at a place in Williamsburg (hipster central) in Brooklyn and you’re excited when you’re walking down the cross street and there are Polish bakeries galore and babies in strollers and it’s so clean! You’re looking for a 631 Humboldt St., but you find only 629 and 633, and you’re wondering if this is an Order-of-the-Phoenix situation when the broker boy calls and you realize he’s 45 minutes away from you and that is never an area you will live in. Your dreams die. You meet him deep into Brooklyn and he can’t find the keys to three separate apartments, so you waste four hours of your life. Or do you? 

By now, you are quite familiar with the L. Not Elle magazine, which is what you should be focusing on, but the L the subway. You’ve been up and down that baby. You’re turning into one of those people who falls asleep on the subway and knows precisely just when to wake herself up (but not really. That is a skill you will never possess). You are very stressed and wondering if you may just have to pay a broker or go home and good God an edit test for a job is due and ahh too much! at one time!

And then you take one last stab. Your friend from home is also staying with a friend and her friend knows a girl who works at a place that happens to be on a Craigslist posting that your friend liked. So you hear it might not be a scam. You go to Brooklyn again, and you have a feeling that this might be it. Dangerous, that feeling. You go to an actual office with people at real computers, and the broker has printed sheets of buildings and has really thought about what you want. He even has a car to take you to these apartments. And so you go.

And you end up liking the second apartment out of the three. It has intricate wood floors and big rooms and windows and a huge bathroom with a beautiful bathtub. The area, Prospect Heights, seems safe and young. There are cool bars down the street and a park and a botanical garden and you are two blocks from several convenient subways. The broker tells you that this is the moment; your potential future Hasidic landlord is breaking Sabbath as you speak and will be out of synagogue in an hour and checking his phone. So, do you want it?

And so you give up. Over a cheeseburger and a bunch of papers, you give up, or you give in, whichever it is, and you sign. Because you could sublet it if you hate it, you think. But you won’t know until you jump, and you just had a feeling, and you could spend a bunch of time wondering whether you could’ve done better, but then half a year would be gone.

So, hallelujah. You’re moving to Brooklyn.

-Malia

  1. postgradlife posted this