Searching through Craigslist for a room in New York is one of the more depressing endeavors you can put yourself through. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, the terrible listings you come across are a joke. On the other hand, sometimes, like in the case of this $450/month windowless walk-in closet that three guys are advertising as ideal for a woman, they’re entirely too real and you’re face-to-face with the pitiless screaming ghoul that is New York City real estate. Close your eyes and don’t look at it, lest it melt your face off!
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The listing rocketed to the top of reddit last night, and we can see why. The ad lists a room in Clinton Hill between Bedford and Classon and is at least upfront about everything, with the title “$450 Walk-in closet in Awesome Apt.” So far so good. Then in the description itself, it gets a little weird:
Small Room/walk-in closet for Rent ideally for female. Seriously just for someone cool, interesting, can pay bills, and can live in a small room walk-in closet in a nice neighborhood. It’s not big, and has no window, but it’s larger than the iphone lens makes it look in these photos.
$450 a month+$40 Utilities+$450 security.
Available, month to month, minimum 2 months.
You’d get this room+ some shelves in the common areas+occasional use of large studio space. We are 3 dudes, mostly ‘hipsters,’ mostly creatives. We’re all about 30. But maybe this room suits someone younger. Looking for someone clean in the common spaces, quiet 11pm-10am, and keeps the place safe and secure. Want someone with a good sense of humor, taste in music, and a good social life helps. NY is a hard place to be sometimes and it’s nice to come home and have someone to chat to about new bands, shows, etc. when your coworkers stab you in the back or you get dumped. If you’re a current or former NY or London indie-gig-goer/musician/music scene person–you’ll get on fine here. Visual art people/art school grads also. Must be vegan/veg friendly and be able to deal with some vegan-political artwork around the house. Other than that. What’s your deal? Have you got a website or creative portfolio? Thank you for reading!!
Emphasis ours. And while the room itself and the casual throwing around of “hipster” and “creatives” could mean the whole thing is just one of those goof listings, the people in the apartment went through a lot of effort dragging a bed in there. Also, a reddit tipster also forwarded us some interactions the person listing the room had with the Gypsy Housing Facebook group he shared the ad on, before that was taken down by moderators:
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We’re of course more than fine with vegan-political artwork, and can usually keep quiet between 11pm and 10am. We’re just wondering about the optics of three dudes in their 30s putting up an ad asking a younger woman to come live in their closet. It seems kind of off. So does joking about running a train on their roommate, maybe that’s just us though. As a reminder, you can still apply for affordable housing on the banks of the Gowanus, and whatever can be said about that, anything that crawls out of there probably won’t jokingly suggest you have to clean a bunch of cum out of a room twice a week.
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View Comments (1)
And that's not even real Clinton Hill, that's Bed-Stuy. No matter what your real estate agent tells you, you cross Classon and you're not in the actually tiny history Clinton Hill neighborhood.