Apartment Hunting, My Little Ice Box

In the process of emailing and calling dozens of landlords, subletters, scam artists and potential roommates, I learned a few things about finding housing in Paris:

1. Do not assume there is a bathroom in the apartment.

2. If they want to know how long you'll be staying, lie!

3. If you're foreign, you will need to provide an extra arm and leg.

4. Be prepared to wait in a line of equally discouraged homeless people.

5. Get ready to lower your standards of living and raise your budget.

6. If the bathroom isn't explicitly listed as "separate," the shower is probably in the kitchen.

7. Landlords want you to have a bank account before renting an apartment. Banks want you to have housing before opening a bank account. So if you want to have a fighting chance at getting an apartment, get used to carrying hundreds of euros in cash around at all times. It is undoubtedly one of the stupidest things you can do, but you never know when a landlord might take pity on your crazy, crying ass and accept your fist full of monopoly money.

8. "One room sleeps four people" is a frequent catchphrase. And is bullshit.

9. If the landlord is on craigslist and is currently in Nigeria doing missionary work, it's a scam.

10. There is always, always someone more desperate than you.


In the end I wound up finding an apartment through a website for French-American resources. The studio is one room with a lofted bed and a bathroom underneath it. That's right--the bathroom is UNDER THE BED! The shower dials for hot and cold are reversed, and the hot water only lasts five minutes tops...but by then I'm usually standing in a puddle 3 inches deep, so it's time to get out anyway. I have several space heaters that don't really do much unless you're standing just close enough not to burn yourself, and I have a totally rad futon that was probably bought circa 1980 and inspired by colorforms.

My apartment is on the second floor of a historic building with some really beautiful, really special stairs.. The first has wide, smooth stone steps that slant to the left, so every time I climb them I think of all the Passover jokes I could make if I had a single Jewish friend here. The second flight narrows as one climbs, and each step is composed of two different types of wood, both very slippery, divided by a large crack in the middle. Had I not seen my friend slip and spiral down an entire staircase on her ass, I might not believe they were so perilous, but at the end of a long night out, I'm always super proud when I make it to the top.

After I come back from the holiday break at home, I'm staying in a friend's teenie but ultra hip and oddly red studio, then moving to another apartment. I'm going to miss my little log cabin fort box. Every time I find myself holding a laptop in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other and falling backwards into a wall while climbing a ladder to get to my bed, I'll think of that ridiculous place I briefly called home.