Manhattan Apartments Inc

So the second hunt was very different.

Building up a list of unusual-to-me names (having met a Lazer, Rex, Brad...), Criseida, the Hispanic in control with the blackest straightest immuculatest hair I can really imagine, booked me up for two showings on a Tuesday lunchtime on the upper east side. I was curious to see what you get for your dollar there and to feel how it might be living in that area.

So here was apartment living of a different kind: posh foyer with barely ever used posh sofas and rug, doorman with striped slightly patronizing suit - and what a boring job!, and floors and floors of identical green carpeted hallways with identical doors off of them.

Criseida's apartment-showing consisted of opening the door, letting you let her go first in a very suave way, and then watching you prowl around. The strange bit of timing as I waited for her to give me the tour, made me feel like a baby put on the floor next to its cot - her watching to see what I would do. OK then! I'll give myself the tour...

Eeek! weeny, teeny kitchen. Eeek! big stodgy armchairs aimed at TV next to double bed. Nice dining table and 2 chairs by window. And furnished places are not usual it seems. It felt like a convalescent room though with the TV and all, not very funky. I have learnt that 'seeing yourself living there' is the only real barometer for a decision in home hunting, apart from desparation. And I've learnt that in Manhattan, places go, like everything else here, quickly. But no fear of that did I feel on this one.

Nor the next one with its nasty old electric cooker. A corridor shaped flat. No doorman which did make the entrance seem a little less safe but only because I'd got used to the idea of a doorman in 20 minutes! The saggy incommunicative Italio-New Yorker lady who opened the door for us was a character though. She made it very clear that the hot water/heating was included - the norm in NYC. And I understand that there is no such thing as council tax!

But the hit was Sherita. Having seen that this hunting business could be a long process I hunted for a chance to see another place that evening, calling a number from CraigsList.com which promoted a place for $1500 mid-town, near Times Square infact. The location sounded like a mixed blessing but I needed to see what you got so centrally.

So Sherita with her very nasal twang told me to be at on the 4th floor of 729 7th avenue for 6pm. Sounded fine. I was. The ground level entrance had seemed....sparkley. And I stepped out of the golden lift into...a huge room of desks all facing the door, with a large semi-circular reception desk at the front. No Sherita, no flat! I was given a form as I slowly said "I think I'm in the wrong place." The receptionist corrected me 'if I was looking for an apartment', which funnily enough I was.

"Hm. What the heck is going on here?" I thought. I filled out the form on auto, asking the receptionist if I could see Sherita. She asked me which company she worked for. I said I didn't know. I called Sherita on cellphone. She answered, saying that if I filled out the form then I would be brought to her. I swear for 3 seconds I thought this was a cover for a brothel and I had been really stupid. As someone who hadn't realised they'd seen a prostitute until about 26 years of age, this seemed possible.

I then got introduced to one Rory who looked at the form, at my job, at my salary and seemed to approve of my idea of living on the upper east side for under $2000. It became clear that many people arriving in Manhattan daily are clueless as to how difficult it is to afford, find and then the really hard bit: convince the landlord to take let you rent their flat. And me having no 'credit history' to be checked I had already heard, is a big deal. But so far my company name was helping a lot, and being able to pay several months of rent in advance was helping too.

But I was irritated! I had intended to nip out for an hour and see a pad! Then steal back to work for an hour to make up for the long lunch hour I had taken! Where was Sherita and her flat please!

Rory, a big guy with bad dress sense, docile and tolerant but no fool, didn't blink as I blew a few fuses about the situation. He tapped into his computer and started listing places that matched the kind of place I was describing. It became clear that we were going on a tour of about 5 places. What the hell, I decided.

"Public transport?" I said.

"On foot and subway. Sherita will take you around"

"So how long do you think it will it take?"

"An hour half..."

He called over softly to someone at a desk behind me "you will be going out again in a bit". I was beginning to get fascinated by the theatre of this whole episode, eyeing other desks and the groups of students around them, and then a lady with incredibly big hair, a dude, a couple.... But I still felt manipulated and was on my guard totally. I kept checking to myself that I still could leave, I still had my money and keys on my person, I hadn't signed anything and didn't have to rent anything at all or have sex and pay anything.

Sherita then arrived. She was a very well bred smiley Texan brunette with an angular pretty face, steady eyes and a kind demeanour. She introduced herself, apoligizing for not meeting me in person at the door and said she was looking forward to showing me around. I was beginning to trust Rory too but wasn't sure if I trusted myself not to be gullible.

Once we hit the street, and hit it we did, it all began to change. Sherita was indeed charming and normal, telling me how she loved her job because she didn't have to sit in an office all day, got to meet great people and snoop at many different apartments.

We chatted on the subway (train) as she guided and smoothed the journey with her local shortcuts and tricks. Turns out she writes songs and has a very fine Taylor guitar, is allergic to gluten, is sympathetic to the occupy movement, takes the view that corporations have supported the toxification of American food for decades for economic gain. She even sang me a bit of one of her songs on the number 4,5,6 platform going uptown at 59th street. She said she was dabbling in her roots: country music. The rather good tune stuck in my head and I said it could be an acapella spiritual. She agreed. We were getting along!

I also found out that students like to come to NYC to study. This is different from UK where I remember being thought a bit stupid choosing London - it being so expensive and unnecessary when students can make a party wherever they land kind of thing.

It just seems that people want to be in NYC. There is something about it. Jeez, feel a song coming on? It does make sense of all the ridiculously high buildings on this small island though. And ancient Indian 'energy lines' all coming to an apex at this point in the US is as good as many explanations to me of why here.

So, as we legged it around the upper east, lots came out about the city in a very organic and useful way. From dealing with the serious bedbug problem to covering your musical instruments in the humid summer so they don't get damp, never putting them by a pipe as pipes boil in the winter even when your heating is off, buying ones first aircon machine, neighbours, superintendents of buildings....

We toured for an exhausting but exciting 2 and a half hours in the end. So I had this marvelous cocktail of "really helpful person to have met in NYC who was putting herself out to show me places and give me great advice on all kinds of things", and "you are not leaving until you like an apartment if it kills me so that I get my fee (and one for the company)". The latter was not in the vibe of things at all - but it had to be true. And the fee was almost worth the experience of shadowing a local serious hot-footer - I barely kept up - even had to execute the odd body-roll to fit around people on the sidewalk and not lose sight of her.

I couldn't get her to admit that there was no $1500 apartment - the one I called for originally. It was just bait, which pollutes CraigsList. And I have since read many hateful reviews of the 'boiler room' aka 'Manhattan Apartments Inc' bait-and-wait (how they love their advertising style jingles to summarize a concept well in the US - unlike this sentence!) operation. One reviewer reported that a broker had bugged her for a date for weeks after the experience, probably bed-bugged in fact. "Glad he has all my details" she wrote sarcastically.

I have sometimes been accused of seeing the other's point of view too much. And I here I do it again. I could actually see the sense of the operation as it did get me inside an apartment that I could see myself living in within 2 hours. You just have to line up a set of apartments and go see them all. And this company have it all set up that way, down to having eye-catching rows and rows and rows of apartment keys all ready to go. So I agreed with some of the positive reviews and felt lucky on my chancing on the right broker, and $paid for it.

Well I've signed the lease and I'll be gradually moving to here over the next 2 weeks :)