Scams abound

Since I am back in NYC for good, I have to get a life here, which means finding an apartment and a job. (Luckily my NYC social life from eight years ago has survived until now and fulfills that aspect of life.) Since I am a teacher and it’s summertime, I figured I should use this time to focus on the apartment aspect. Big mistake. Huge. Really set myself up for a mega failure on that one.

Nobody will rent an apartment to a jobless person. Regardless of how much money is in my bank account, they do not care. Like I literally told the agent, “I can pay six months up front! Or even the whole year!” and she was like “I’m really busy, gotta go, byeeee.” Because apparently they need to see a contract that tells them how much money I am going to be making. And pay stubs proving that I have been getting that amount. And the yearly amount that I make needs to be 40 times the monthly rent. You can use a guarantor if you don’t have that amount, but the guarantor needs to make 100 times the monthly rent. So if the rent is $2,000 per month (which will get you a tiny studio apartment) your guarantor needs to make $200,000 per year.

It’s next level.

So obviously that option was out for now. Which led to looking at subleases or rooms in shared apartments. And oh the scams! This one guy was trying to pass off this gorgeous studio, whose actual price is roughly $2,500/month, (when they give you an address, you should definitely search it and find out what price it’s been listed as before/on other websites, etc.) as being only $1,100/month. I didn’t realize it was a scam at first, but when I grasped it, I played along a little bit more until he sent me this ridiculous lease agreement with typos and strangely huge font sizes. And there are also these horrible companies that rent out rooms in shared apartments that they don’t clean, but they then add mystery cleaning fees multiple times throughout your stay. (Don’t forget to search for reviews of brokers/companies you’re renting through!)

So now I’ve decided to stay in Airbnb apartments indefinitely. It’s honestly roughly the same price and at least I can know exactly what I’m getting myself into. But oh how I dreamed of no longer living in a suitcase or sharing an apartment! I just wanted my own wee flat to furnish and decorate and love…. one day, one day.