Water Damage, Dirty Dishes, and Second-Hand Smoke: What New York Taught Me
I arrived in New York at 5:20 am only to find my underwear, Instax film, and my calendar strewn across the baggage claim carousel. It took me an hour to get to my new apartment and as soon as I walked in, I wanted to leave. There were buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken everywhere, which to this day there is no reasoning, and there a heavy smell of cigarettes and weed. I put my suitcases in my room and climbed up the ladder to the unmade loft bed and took a nap.
During the next three months, I’ve learned a lot about living with other people and living in New York in general. My coworkers told me I had enough content to make my experiences into a Ladybird-esque short film, but as I am not very cinematically gifted, I decided to turn it into words instead.
These five things are just a small fraction I’ve learned living in an abandoned sweater factory in Brooklyn with a self-proclaimed “high fashion photographer.”
1) Say Hello To Your Upstairs Neighbors
After firefighters severely damage your building after someone called in about non-existent smoke followed by a swift and powerful downpour of gross, humid rain, take this opportunity to say hello to your upstairs neighbors through the now gone walls separating your bathrooms!
What better way to get to know your fellow illegal subletting dwellers than with extensive water damage? Who needs rooftop parties and shared moments holding the door for one another when you could just say hello while brushing your teeth? Shout out to Brooklyn’s fire department and New York’s low pressure system for bringing me that much closer to Izak and Heather without having to venture outside of my own bathroom.
2) Learn What Your Ideal Roommate Is
Who needs a meme of expectation vs reality when you can live in it for three months! From the self-described listing, I was looking forward to quiet nights after 10 pm, occasional chit chat about the daily happenings with my roommate and his wife, and a smoke free home.
Instead, I got chain smoking of everything under the sun, bilateral phone conversations at 2 am with crepe-thin walls, six to eight hour photo shoots that occurred right in front of my door, blocking me of making my nightly meal of pasta, and a perpetually single 38 year old man. Needless to say, I lost 10 pounds in one month thanks to the “professional New York photographer” diet of blocking the stove with the couch.
3) Never Forget Your Key
I forgot my keys the one and only day my roommate didn’t happen to be home all day. I was stuck sitting pathetically outside my door with my Duane Reade bag filled with antibiotics after being stuck at NYU’s emergency dental center after my incoming wisdom teeth got infected. It was at the one hour and twenty-minute mark of being stuck outside when the guy across the hall came to the rescue.
Drew, bless your soul.
We talked shit about my roommate, which everyone in the building hates (rightfully so) and how much I was overpaying, which was unknownst to me before this point. After 2-ish hours of David Attenborough’s lullaby of a voice narrating sea critters to both my fascination and horror, the loud and boisterous roommate finally returned from wherever he ventured off to.
4) Living With An Immature 38 Year Old Boy Is Gross
It was within the last weeks of residency in the former sweater factory in that I noticed that the bath mat near the toilet was always wet. The shower curtain had no evidence of anyone recently showering and I know for a fact I hadn’t gotten up recently and splashed water everywhere. I sat down and the smell was recognizable instantly
Living in San Francisco, I knew at that moment exactly what stench I was smelling, I knew at that moment exactly what was happening. My roommate was too lazy to open his eyes and see where he was going and what he was doing, so most of his middle-of-the-night expressions ended up on the bath mat. I know most guys aren’t this gross, especially when they’re living with other people, but he was an extreme outlier. You would expect a guy to be potty trained by 38.
5) “I’m A Photographer” Means “I’m Going To Judge You While You Eat Dinner”
You’d expect the life of a self-proclaimed “top photographer” in New York would be swanky and exclusive. Ha. Nope. Living with this type of person consists of them judging what you eat, who you date, and what you look like compared to other girls. When I would come home every night from either my internship or my retail job, said roommate would ask me what I’m having for dinner, either pasta or salad, and then proceed to ask me questions as to why I’m eating it while he chomps on delivered take-out from someplace down the street. When he cohered me into eating with him on the couch instead of in my room, he proceeded to pull out his phone, show me models on Instagram, and comment on the differences between the models and me. As a pretty average looking 20 year old moving to New York for an editorial internship, I never thought I’d find myself in a “photographer’s” living room being judged for looks I never claimed to have. The tipping point of that night was when he asked how old I was. I responded, “twenty,” and he, with wide eyes responded with, “what? No! I thought you were at least thirty!” Laughing as he walked to leave his dishes in the sink for me to wash later.
I am now sitting in the Phoenix airport waiting on my delayed flight to San Jose. While my experiences may have not been at all like Ladybird, these past few months have toughened me up as a person. Like my coworkers have said to me time and time again, if I can make it in New York, I can make it anywhere. And if I could live with this roommate from hell, I can live with anyone.
