The lonely apartment hunter

Looking for a place to live is a trying, difficult exercise in any city. But somehow, it is even more frustrating and exhausting to do so in Manhattan, where the ongoing mentality about those eager to sublet, lease or rent is that there’s someone better around the corner. Someone more suitable, more glamorous, more “it” than the last fabulous, glamorous, “it” person who showed up to say “pick me, pick me!”

It’s especially that way when roommates are involved. Because of course, it’s not just about whether you like the place and have a decent credit rating to shackle yourself to an apartment for twelve months or longer. They have to like you, too. And in New York, it’s a seller’s market all the way. The cattle call begins and candidate after candidate parade in and out, hoping, praying that he or she will be the anointed one.

And while I’m not a novice — I’ve been on both sides of the Manhattan roommate lottery before — I also still managed to forget, just a little bit, what it all felt like. The anxiety, the waiting, the naked hope and paralyzing fear that I will never find a place to live — that I’ll be homeless, undiscovered and unloved.

I also forgot that there’s a lot of humor to be had. After all, I was the girl who read Chris Niles’s HELL’S KITCHEN — one of my favorite books, I might add — while interviewing prospective roommates barely a few months after I’d moved into my old place.

Never mind the strange stories that beg for answers.

First, there is the tale of someone I’ll call T. Way back in the summer of 2001, when I was first introduced to the joys of what I now call the Upper West Side Roommate Lottery, I saw his ad featured in most of the usual places I’m supposed to look for an apartment: Craigslist, the Voice, some other niche-driven bulletin boards. It advertised “your own room” in a sunny 4th floor apartment in a doorman building, complete with elevators and basement laundry. A sundeck, cable TV and internet access. All at a fairly decent price for the West Side. What’s not to love? Surely it would be snapped up by someone quickly. No doubt he could pick and choose among several worthy candidates.

I didn’t think much of the ad the first time I saw it. Nor the next, a week later. But by the fifth or sixth time, a few months later, I started to wonder: what was this guy’s story? Was he blackballed, was he a complete loser to live with, was he psycho and word was getting around? Why wasn’t he filling the apartment? Was it a scam?

Of course, as time went on, I forgot about it. I wasn’t checking want ads because I had a place of my own. Then I left, started a strange 2 year odyssey, and soon found myself revisiting such pleasures. Checking for want ads in the usual places.

And what do you know. He’s back. Same place, same amenities, and weirdest of all, the exact same price. After four years? Even the rent-stabilized places go up a little bit.

There has to be a story. A small part of me wants to email him and ask what’s up, why he can’t fill the apartment. Or keep a roommate. Or something.

But even that’s not the oddest story of my recent apartment search. Hands down, that belongs to the ad I saw a couple of weeks ago, advertising a fabulous place on the West Side: “great roommates, great space, great location.” As I read through the description and the contact information, I laughed out loud:

It was my old apartment.

On a whim I emailed the person who’d placed the ad, asking if it was. Not only that, but she was my old roommate, and the room advertised was my old room.

Mine, for $100 more per month than I’d paid 4 years ago.

I decided it probably wasn’t worth my while to move back.