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Congress Street Luxury

Finding your place amongst cheap housing and questionable landlords

By Arwyn ShermanPublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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Not an actual photo but an accurate representation.

My first apartment was a dirty two bedroom on the top floor of a business that didn't sell anything but stale chips and late night meetings. My mail was stolen regularly and I took smoke breaks by a house people entered and exited through a busted window. The entire building smelled of stale blunts and filth. I loved it.

I was twenty two, freshly out of college and ready to be a real adult (™). I drove four hours to the largest city in my state, cat in tow whining in her carrier like an opera singer in a lament. It was the only apartment I could afford and I was going to make the most of it. I had a flow of roommates for the rest of my time there, some staying a few years, others only a month or two. I was the apartment keeper, the only one responsible for its upkeep but moving people in as needed to continue affording to live there. At one point a lovely artist took up residence in the living room because my roommate and I wanted to pay even less in rent. The degradation of the building a perfect space for the transient souls I surrounded myself with. I was home to many.

There’s something special about the first residence one takes up as they enter into the rest of their life--a marker for the journey they are about to embark on. Mine was bottom of the barrel, dead mice and mystery cat hair laced in the carpet. Stains that wouldn’t come out even with the best scrubbing. My excitement about being in my favorite city, away from the room to room rentals of college and having my own lease, that I didn’t mind any of it.

I learned a few things during that time.

1) Pipes freeze and burst if your kitchen sink has a hole your landlord won’t acknowledge that goes directly to the outside during the winter. He will eventually admit it’s existence when there's water rushing in at one in the morning but will consider stuffing said hole with towels an appropriate solution. I do not resent all landlords, but this particular one was kind of a sh*t bag.

2) Making friends with your neighbors will initiate you into an unspoken neighborhood watch that involves people flying out of windows to break up any fights that happen on the sidewalk. This is a true story about the time I walked into a fifteen person brawl, more people shooting out of the neighboring residence like bullets to join in. It ended when the neighborhood lesbian plopped out of her window (door? I still am not entirely sure what was up with that) and screamed WE WILL NOT BE DOING THAT HERE and promptly broke the whole thing up. To this day I remain emphatically in awe of her power.

3) Your landlord is not your friend and will charge you for the carpets he replaced that were covered in cat urine from the previous tenant’s pet, calling it a maintenance fee when giving back half of your security deposit. Take photos and videos before you move out. Seriously.

4) If you leave coconut oil out, there's a chance your roommate will mistake it for cleaning supplies (????) and put it under the sink where it will become a deadly cesspool to mice who drown then spill on your feet as a corpse infusion from hell, traumatizing you forever. A less specific way to put this is learning to live with a variety of people is a helpful skill to develop :).

I’ve since moved away from the city, a casual displacement as a result of rent prices skyrocketing with money moving in and everything getting over-developed (also known as gentrification). My lovely, gross, overwrought first apartment has been rebuilt into luxury condos, the eons of cigarettes in the communal cigarette butt bucket finally swept away, walls torn down and outside repainted an unrecognizable but crisp grey. There's a sadness there as I drive by, witness everything becoming unaffordable and re-tumbled into upper end housing. I remember the place fondly though, in all its pre-discovered glory, ready for the newly initiated adult to scrabble around and find footing in. I wish everyone a first apartment such as mine.

humanity
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About the Creator

Arwyn Sherman

swamp creature that writes stories / chao incarnate

occasionally leaves the bog to forage

IG: feral.x.creature

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