Viral TikTok has viewers wondering why people live in NYC
What good is an open house if you can’t open the door to enter the house?
A short TikTok video posted this week has gone viral with more than 2.2 million views as of Friday afternoon – by showing a darker side of life in New York City.
In this case, you’re paying an arm and a leg for a device that – aside from its supposedly high price – has a very different barrier to entry.
“The reality of NYC apartment hunting and the absurd prices,” wrote a user named Charlotte in the clip. The video shows her trying to open the front door, which cannot swing all the way open.
About 45 degrees into the doorway, it hits the handle of an oven that appears to be inches away — and the impact rocks it. She then squeezes through the doorframe – opening it as far as it will go – to reveal the rest of the kitchen, oddly installed in a hallway. To the left of this oven is a half-size dishwasher, a sink, hardly any counter space – and hardly any floor space to maneuver.
“Imagine paying $4,000 a month to get your door slammed every time you use the stove and someone comes home,” she added.
Charlotte, who later says she was on a tour of that unit, did not respond to a request for comment. It is not clear where in town this apartment is located.
The clip, which received more than 175,000 likes, also garnered more than 1,300 comments, very few of which were positive.
“Imagine wanting to live in NYC,” one wrote, while another wrote, “cook and roommate walks in…just 3rd degree burns.”
Others questioned the practicality of living in a room where the front door is barred by a large device. “How are you going to bring the furniture in?” asked another. “I guess we’re just packing a fork.”
Meanwhile, others questioned the legality of this layout. One user, who identified himself as an employee of the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, said he was almost certain “there are some violations of the housing code [that] Apartment.”
“LMK because that was my first thought when I walked in,” Charlotte replied in a follow-up clip, posted two days later, which garnered more than 120,600 views. This video shows what it’s like to turn around in the cramped kitchen to go to the rest of what appears to be a tiny studio.
“Isn’t that a health hazard?” She said, adding in the comments, “I wish I’d recorded what the agent said… ‘It’s definitely uncomfortable.'”
Also uncomfortable is the general state of the city’s rental market. Around this time last year, as rents continued to fall to record lows, some locals were upgrading — sometimes fetching more space for the same price they were paying elsewhere, or even less. But around the fall of 2021, those sweet deals disappeared, and some tenants had to face rent increases of up to 79% more per month to renew.
More recently, New Yorkers looking to rent new homes — at a time when many local offices have at least partially reopened — have faced bidding wars to secure leases, which has only pushed prices higher. Available units have also drawn large crowds for open houses – and this at a time when rental stocks are fairly low.
In all of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens — excluding the Bronx or Staten Island — fewer than 10,000 apartments are available, according to Douglas Elliman’s records.
https://nypost.com/2022/05/27/viral-tiktok-makes-viewers-wonder-why-people-live-in-nyc/ Viral TikTok has viewers wondering why people live in NYC
