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These Eight Millennials Have Created The World’s Worst Living Situation In Brooklyn

by May 14, 2018
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These Seven People Have Created The Worst Possible Living Situation In Brooklyn

Finding the right living situation is akin to scheduling classes in college or filing your taxes. In the midst of it, it’s one of the most miserable experience you could possibly fathom. But once it’s over, you can breathe in some fresh air and know that it’s all behind you.

But for these eight (8) New Yorkers, they’ve somehow completely botched it beyond comprehension.

The New York Times (of course) has put them on a pedestal in their regular “Renters” column which is often almost as insufferable as their marriage announcements. As someone who lives in a five-bedroom house with three other guys, I can admit that I’ve maxed out. These people, though, they’ve really done a number on themselves.

Below in blockquotes are excerpts from the column — titled When the Downstairs Neighbors Become Best Friends — and they’re, uh, something.

* * *

When Zach Tan Strein, Corey Eisenberg and Alex Faoro signed the lease on a three-bedroom apartment on the border of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick, Brooklyn, last June, they didn’t give much thought to who their downstairs neighbors would be.

But within a few months, the residents of the five-bedroom duplex below became the defining element of their living experience — in a good way.

“We have an open-door policy and basically share our spaces. We’re all like roommates,” Mr. Strein said. The setup is all the more serendipitous as the downstairs apartment was largely an agglomeration of subletters who found rooms on the Facebook group Gypsy Housing. They could hardly have been expected to become fast friends with each other, let alone the people upstairs.

Apologies for the chunkiness of this quote but I found it important to set the scene.

I don’t live by that many rules, but a hard one that I am likely going to abide by moving forward is to never live in a situation that’s derived from a Facebook group titled “Gypsy Housing.” This has so many red flags that it looks like you’re playing Minesweeper on expert.

In total, there are eight bedrooms throughout this makeshift hostel. Having one roommate in a cramped New York City apartment already sounds miserable enough, so to have quadruple that many people existing in one space just sounds anxiety-inducing.

The column itself states that rent is “$2,450 a month for the three-bedroom apartment upstairs; $4,100 a month for the five-bedroom downstairs; and individual rents vary from $750 to $975 a month.” Yeah, sub-$1,000 rent in New York City sounds like a dream, but please keep in mind that there’s always going to be someone clanking pans or secretly trying to get their rocks off in the comfort of their bedroom at any given moment. All of these people are between the ages of 23-26, so you’d have to bet there are countless Bumble dates and overnighters crashing their already crowded party.

The alliance was cemented by Mr. Faoro’s Jura Impressa coffee maker, which was soon drawing the downstairs crew upstairs on a regular basis. And as they are the only two apartments in the building, it quickly seemed unnecessary to lock — or often even to shut — their doors.

I’ll save you the Google, but yes, that Jura Impressa coffee maker is $2,000. These things are like the Rolls Royces of coffee machines. Only in Bushwick can you find someone that is willing to spend more on their coffee machine than their rent. It’s truly remarkable (yet unsurprising) stuff.

Mr. Eisenberg had spotted the apartment on Gypsy Housing, where people post apartments and rooms, and responded within three minutes after clocking that the place was within budget, at $2,450 a month, and a lease takeover from the three couples living there at the time, so there wouldn’t be a broker’s fee.

I wouldn’t consider myself an introvert by any means, but it seems like a pretty knee-jerk move to decide to live someone within three minutes of seeing their listing on a goddamn Gypsy Facebook group. The fact that they took this lease over from six other people (three couples) is also jarring — mainly because three fucking couples were living together at once. Sex, arguments, popping each other’s pimples — everything’s on the table when you’re in a relationship. Nothing like sharing that experience with four other idiots as well.

The article goes on to discuss each of these tenants and their occupations which are all equally shocking.

Ms. Barringer — a seamstress and freelance costume technician.

Mr. Eisenberg — commercial design and fabrication, in addition to his own papier-mâché projects.

Mr. Strein — intern at Dickson’s, a butcher in Chelsea Market.

What do interns at butcher shops do in their spare time, you ask? Oh, they “used leftover beef tallow to make candles in the backyard.” I love a good beef candle. I hope they trimmed their wicks after initially burning them because the last thing we want is this commune to go up in flames.

Actually, maybe that is best-case scenario after what happened last Christmas.

Things have not been entirely rosy. On Christmas morning, Mr. Eisenberg discovered a bedbug in the apartment. He ran downstairs to tell Ms. Lopez, the only other person home. They decided to wait until the next day to tell the others, but immediately ran to Home Depot and started a massive cleaning.

Call me “crazy,” but “bedbugs” and “eight people living in the same apartment” don’t exactly mix to me.

Let me ask you something. Say your apartment has, oh, I don’t know… fucking bedbugs. And say that your roommate discovers them. Then, let’s say that instead of telling you that day, he waits a full ‘nother day to drop that bomb on you. Like, I know it’s Christmas and the worst gift you can receive is bedbugs, but have mercy here, Eisenberg. You can’t withhold that kind of stuff. Luckily it only took them SIX FUCKING WEEKS to remedy.

“It brought us closer together,” one of the village idiots claimed. It also forced a roommate they didn’t like to move out because “he didn’t want to deal with the bedbugs or the extermination.” Imagine that.

Ms. Deda, who had become friends with Ms. Lopez while working at a nearby kava bar, had heard so many positive things about the house and its friendly, communal vibe that she moved in during the infestation.

I’ve only been featured in The New York Times once (Humblebrag City, Population: Me) and they definitely threw shade at me, but it was still a better appearance than our girl Ms. Lopez who will forever be described as the person who “moved in during the infestation.” Moving into this freshman dorm is already a decision worthy of questioning, so moving in during the midst of a bedbug flush is downright baffling.

Oh, and here they are, by the way.

As if there was any question.

[via The New York Times]

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