Apartment hunting on a tiny budget in one of the priciest cities on the planet is a lot of fun. It's good blog fodder at least.
When our pittance of a rent budget got us laughed out of the Village – well, maybe not laughed; try “slightly heated debated” us out of the Village – we looked next to the Upper East Side. We found a few interesting prospects and met a few equally interesting brokers.
Favorite Broker of the Day:
Richard (name has not been changed to protect the innocent. this is really his name and typically I shy away from calling strangers out on the blog, but seriously – who’s going to find him among the 39,000 brokers in the city?) who smells of cough drops and tobacco shows us a small studio off 3rd Ave with a lovely fold-out-of-the-wall plywood table, nice touch. He determines it’s a little small for us and tells us to meet him in 20 minutes at another building where he has two apartments available. He shows us the unit on the third floor and invites us to check out the one on the fourth, he’ll wait here to give us some privacy. So we run upstairs, door is locked, head back downstairs just in time to hear “flush.” Turns out, it was Richard who needed the privacy. Bear in mind, this is a vacant apartment. We’re talkin’ no soap and water. We didn’t shake Richard’s hand when we left.
So Close, Should Be A Tie Runner-Up:
James shows us a ridiculously huge apartment further north. I wish I felt better about the ‘hood, because this is a crazy amount of space. Noah and I would both be able to spin around with our arms outstretched and not hit each other. James is a super-friendly guy, but tells us how he doesn’t feel good about the couple who just looked at it because they talked too much, then proceeds to chatter for about 20 minutes without either of the Riley duo getting a word in edgewise. The conversation is laced with general profanity throughout, but garnered raised eyebrows from moi when he described the management’s reaction by flipping us off and dropped the f-bomb when he talked about “messing” with people he thinks are high maintenance by enticing them to a scream of a deal near Central Park that is actually really disgusting and has a common restroom in the hallway. Yeah, that’s super funny.
Achmed and his bro are looking better and better all the time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
17 comments:
You are too funny and your blog is SOOOO entertaining. The memories you guys are making are incredible. How is the job??
Rent. Control. It may be your only hope. What can we do to persuade certain people out of their luxurious, low-cost pads? :)
Yikes! I agree with Rent Control... hopefully something turns up!
I hope something turns up soon! I know that looking for an apartment is a pain!
Please send me your email address so I can give you the name of our CES friend in Manhatten. I guarantee he's a lot more trustworthy than these guys you've been seeing!
Ugh. That no soap, no water thing is just digusting. Sorry you had to go through that. You make me laugh though...hope you have great adventures in the near future! :)
the glittering lights o' the big city!
I'm with "Mom" you need to find a more reliable source!!
i think you should keep with the system you have. it is so entertaining for us. maybe you should do it as a research project and then write a book about it and make mucho denero. then you could live in the upper west side of manhattan. if that's what you want.
hey...I have rather, er..."enjoyed" reading through your Big Apple adventures...I use the word "enjoy" because I am hoping you too are enjoying yourself. Seriously...I think Achmed would be a great roommate. He'd probably cook Indian food for Noah :-)
And, I have a friend that lives in New York. She is cute and fun and she has an apartment...so I think they could qualify as good people. You can find her blog at:
thecolbychronicles.blogspot.com
And...I blog-lurk on a couple of cute couples from NYC...I could give you their blog URLs if you promise to not tell them you got their info from me :-). They.don't.know.me. Is that weird?
yikes. I third the "mom" notion, how could you not after that? :) Would Kim & Greg's apt. work out? I don't know anything about it, but. We missed you guys at the Devin's wedding! We had fun at your mom's on Sunday! Good luck with everything over there!
What a riot! Good luck with the apartment hunt...
Hey, you don't know me but I used to work with Natalie and she showed me this post and I was cracking up!
My husband and I moved to NYC a couple years ago and had very similar experiences. It's definitely an adventure, but so worth it. If you ever want advice on anything let me know!
You are so dang cute! I LOVE reading your blog and hearing about everything that is going on in your life. How is the big city? Hopefully you're enjoying the lifestyle-probably way different than little old Salt Lake. You are close to some awesome stuff, hopefully you get time to see all the sites:)
Hey, we live in Washington Heights and are in the Inwood 1st Ward. Lots of square footage up here for the price, but the commute can be rough and neighborhood a bit more "flavorful" if you will.
We're moving closer to downtown in March because my husband is starting business school while working full time.
Anyway, feel free to email if you want more advice or want to chat! katejmcneil at yahoo dot com
haha, i laughed out loud when i read that it turns out richard needed some privacy of his own! this apartment hunting is hilarious!
oh and ps- if you guys get in a bind without finding something and need a place to crash for awhile feel free to crash at the cutlers! you can easily commute up to nyc everyday! no problem ;)
Post a Comment