Apartment Woes

[Joywitch M. Curmudgeon]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "jenny from ravenclaw" <meboriqua at a...> 
wrote:
> I must vent.  Raul (my sweetie) and I have been living in a studio 
> here in Manhattan for four years now.  We love our neighborhood and 
we 
> like our apartment, but it's just too small for both of us and our 
cat 
> Lily.  We started actively looking for a one bedroom this summer 
and 
> we cannot find an apartment!  
> 
> Looking for an apartment in NYC is like trying to get into Harvard; 
> the odds are against you [snip]

Looking for an apartment in NYC is a nightmare, and one of the main 
reasons that I am an expatriate.  I know lots of people who would go 
to the newstand to get the Village Voice at 5 AM and then head over 
to the apartments with fistfulls of cash.  There is an old joke about 
reading the obituaries, I've met one or two people who claimed to 
have found an apartment that way.  Another thing you can try is going 
door to door -- literally knocking on the super's door of every 
single building in the neighborhood you want to live in.  The super 
is always the first to know when someone moves out, and if you can 
make friends with a few supers of large buildings and have a little 
patience you might just score.

Good luck, jenny, and try not to get too discouraged.

--Joywitch