That’s Stella

My sublet at my apartment is coming to an end this month. I’ve already been looking for my May apartment, more then a month in advance, especially seeing as this apartment was so hard to find in the first place. I’ve come to love this place despite the flaws that I’ve listed below to make me love even MORE the new place I found for May. It is quite a gem (let me just say, my own studio, balcony and elevator) but I’ll tell you more about it when I move in. Here’s my list of flaws of my current place:

1) The NARROW bathroom
When you sit on the crapper, your nose is a mere 10 cms from the wall if you’re sitting slightly hunched. This really rules out any chance of getting any decent reading done in there.

2) CREAKY wooden floors
They are SO loud. I pretty much know all the bowel movement times of my housemates and they know mine because we have to walk past each others rooms and make a racket walking on the floors to get to the bathroom. You can also hear the neighbours on the top floor.

3) NEIGHBOURS (in other buildings)
When you stand in our kitchen cooking, our neighbour in the building NEXT DOOR can pretty much see you tearing up as you chop onions and can SMELL what you’re cooking. This is especially awkward because I like to cook in my pyjamas. The other day I heard someone sneezing and I thought it was my house mate - it wasn’t. It was the man on the top floor in the building next door. I could’ve whispered “Bless you” and he would’ve heard me. I thank GOD none of the neighbours are getting any because that would be really awkward and I would be envious.

4) HOUSEMATES
I think I got really lucky with my housemates considering horror stories I’ve heard from others (New York is full of mental people and kleptomaniacs apparently.) However, numero uno flaw with the housemates is their laziness! I am always the one taking out the garbage (down 5 flights of stairs) 3x a week, vacuuming, sweeping, mopping…So the other day, the light in the bathroom blew a fuse and as a lesson I decided not to do anything about it and would let them deal with something for once. I have my showers in the morning when I can get natural light so I’m not fussed. My house mates response? My American housemate moves out of the apartment for a fucking week and the Aussie housemate (who is 6ft and is the most capable to do anything about the high ceiling light) goes to the deli across the road and buys a candle.

5) 5 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS
Enough said. The UPS man or delivery boy always gives us evils. I am in the habit now of tipping generously. Usually you tip 15% but the other night my Chinese came to $12 and I still gave the delivery man a $5 tip - $1 for every flight of stairs.