The House of Seven Roommates

"Seven roommates!"

"You like roommates."

"Yes, but seven!!"

In the 24 hours before I saw my first and second dream apartments, I went to an open house for a "bedroom with attached sunroom" in a "classy Victorian" with seven roommates.

The price was considerably lower than my established 30%, and I like both savings and sunrooms. I figured I could deal with seven roommates if I had to. (Plus, I could always retreat to the sunroom!)

I was five minutes early and there was already a line to see the room. Mostly made up of students and interns.

The house was very classy from the outside only. Inside it was quite literally trashed, trashed as only a house with a rotating cast of low-paid students and interns can be.

Oh, and it was crawling with bedrooms. Every room was a bedroom. One of the potential "sunroom hopefuls" must have been an architecture student, because she kept poking her head into every bedroom and saying "that was originally the pantry" or "that was the formal dining room; see how it's attached to the parlor by a pocket door?"

Now the pantry was stuffed with an air mattress and covered with posters of half-naked girls and cars.

The floors were warped and the stairs were crooked and the attached sunroom was a dank, grubby little space which must rarely ever see any actual sun. You had to sign up to use the bathroom.

At the end of the tour, it was clear that most of the young hopefuls still desperately wanted that living space. I, on the other hand, turned and fled.

I'm not a student anymore. Thank goodness.