On The Other Side of the Avenue

For the past month, I’ve read more Craigslist than the New York Times. That’s right, I’m moving. If you don’t mind cats, aren’t around much, all your stuff can fit in your room and you don’t have a Divatitude, finding a place is easy. But for me, someone who hates cats and has a huge Divatitude, getting an apartment on the cheap near Prospect Park has been difficult.

In Crown Heights, I saw a place where the outgoing roommate wanted to sell the couch she kept in the living room. Now that’s bizarre, right? Why wouldn’t she just leave it or have the remaining roommate buy it off of her? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the two old roommates were scheming against the new one. The outgoing roommate didn’t want to give it away and the remaining roommate didn’t want to pay it. A mark from Craigslist would solve both of their problems by buying it. This didn’t seem like the beginning of a warm home to me.

Yesterday, I settled on a place on the Prospect Heights side of Washington Avenue. This is a huge relief to my subconscious, which has been dreaming about homelessness for the past month. For those who were curious, the cost of living in an apartment with a working buzzer and without teenagers smoking blunts in the stairwell is an extra $235 a month. And I’m finally at a point in my life where I’m willing to pay that price.