My First Apartment in Harlem

01My First Apartment in Harlem - New York City

Today it's time to reveal my first apartment in New York, located on 136th Street and Broadway. Just steps from the subway station, we had enormous difficulty finding an apartment due to our particular situation and limited budget.

If you too are looking for an apartment in New York, you can read the article I wrote with my tips for finding the home of your dreams in the city.

Now that you've watched the video, I can admit that all of this was obviously ironic. We found this apartment through the Spare Room website and app (which I don't really recommend as there are a lot of scams). At first, the apartment's promises were pretty decent with its two living rooms, fairly well-equipped kitchen and two nice bathrooms. However, we should have been more cautious, because we gradually realised all the problems of living here.

I'd say the main problem was the three rooms that were on Airbnb. Full almost every day, we saw a huge number of people come and go, and sometimes very strange ones. There's nothing worse than wanting to relax at home after work. Of course, Airbnb guests don't have to clean etc. But because of the incredibly poor management by the landlord, it was up to us to clean everything (and even provide the toilet paper etc.).

The other big problem was one of the flatmates who was also co-owner of the apartment. He smoked joints every day in his room, filling the rest of the apartment with smoke. On top of that he was loud, messy and rude. He frequently invited his mates to party in his room with zero respect for the other tenants.

Finally, the neighbourhood was also incredibly rough. Harlem is relatively nice around Columbia and down to 125th Street. Past that, it gets much dodgier. We didn't necessarily feel unsafe, but it is far from pleasant to live in. Plus, we were right next to the 137th City College subway entrance, which attracts odd, noisy people 24/7. In short, it wasn't the right spot for us. The only thing I'll miss are our three other flatmates who, unlike the rest, were incredibly kind and pleasant.

The price was also incredibly high for the neighbourhood. $1,350 is very low for New York, especially as a couple. But for a 6-bedroom apartment (where our room was quite small), that's a lot of money. I think the fair price for the neighbourhood and what you get would have been more like $1,100.

Anyway, we decided to invest more in our next apartment. That's why we moved to an AMAZING new building. Stay tuned, I'll show you very soon!