New York City is famous for the Statue of Liberty, Broadway, the Empire State Building — and it's tiny apartments. Not that it doesn't have some of the largest, most amazing apartments on the planet — but those are for the billionaires. Hands off, pleb! The rest of us usually get somewhere around 500 to 700 square feet, if we're lucky. Yeah, even if you have kids. But some people, apparently, are willing to go much, much smaller –and more disgusting — than that. Many people in NYC are forced to rent a room in an apartment with others. And some of those rooms are, uh, not even really rooms.
A new blog called The Worst Room is tracking some of these Lilliputian rooms people are renting out — and their usually gargantuan price tags. Examples:
For only $300 a month in NYC, you know you're going to get something awful, and this "room" below — essentially a cot crammed into the corner of a kitchen — doesn't disappoint.
$800 a month will get you this room below, which even the little dog knows is too small for anything. At least it has a fresh coat of yellow paint.
Here is a lovely bed and a bookshelf all ensconsed in what appears to be a basement. Hey, you can hang your wet clothes over the pipe above your head! $800 a month.
This is, um, a "kitchen". Well, there is a stove. Sorta.
I've lived in the city for a long time and it's been awhile since I've been on the "room circuit" but I do quite clearly remember the horror of it. Let's face it, for $800 a month you could probably pay the mortgage on a three-bedroom house in most towns.
That said, New York City has career opportunities that most places don't. It's got world class food, entertainment, and culture. Many people merely use their apartments as crash pads anyway.
Still … these places are so depressing that I never could have lived in NYC for as long as I have if I had rented something like that. Call me crazy, but I need sunshine and place to put some clothes!
Could you ever live in a room like these?
Image via The Worst Room/Tumblr
