March–April, 2008: Vol. 1, No. 1

I know I won’t get any sympathy by saying this, but sometimes it’s tough to be a guy who does not pay rent. I found this out last summer, when I was lucky enough to win a campus housing lottery that got me a room on the top floor of the president’s house on the leafy Pratt Institute campus in Clinton Hill. (The president, by the way, was out of town.)

Getting that yearlong lease was only a lucky break, I assure you (I assured my friends, too, not that it did any good!).

Most of the problems start when I’m sitting around in a restaurant or a bar or a friend’s cramped, $1,200-a-month closet. Someone invariably brings up the topic of rent, since at any given time, four out of every five of my friends are in the process of looking for an apartment, trying to sublet an apartment, or looking for additional roommates.

Then, honoring an ancient New York tradition, they start complaining about where they live:

“My landlord won’t make any repairs or turn on the heat, and he’s raising the rent again.”

“My lease is running out and I have no idea where I’m going to live.”

“I have to find another roommate because I can’t afford to buy groceries and pay the rent at the same time.”

“My building is getting turned into a co-op. I can’t afford to live anywhere — if I can’t find a better-paying job, I’ll have to move to Queens!”

And then the question invariably comes around to me: “What about you? How much do you pay?”

“Uhh…” I stammer, “as of right this second? Actually, um, I’m not paying anything.”

The room stares at me in envy, occasionally in unabashed hatred. I explained the situation.

“Oh, so you live in a dorm?”

Perhaps I’m too honest. If I would just answer “yes,” the discussion — and the painful dissection of my real-estate good fortune — would end. But I’m always too honest about revealing the far-more-glamorous nature of my digs.

“School president?! Are you telling us you live in a mansion — for free?!”

That’s where I typically change the subject (or get the hell out of there).

My friends, like many early-twentysomethings, are trying to make it as artists, writers, designers while working at least one other job to pay the bills. Rent destroys their savings, forces them to work six or seven days a week, and leaves them with no spare time. It’s bad enough that they have that nasty monkey on their backs, but it’s even worse when they hear that not only don’t I carry around that monkey, but actually my monkey is a damn nice guy.

Indeed, thanks to my rent-free status, I can take unpaid internships, my weekends are always free, and if I have a week off, I don’t have to panic about how I’m going to get money for this month’s check. When I’m sitting around my mansion, with enough time to cook, read, barbeque on my lawn (a real lawn), or just sit on my roof, I think, “Thank God I don’t have to pay rent, because there’s no way I could ever afford this place.”

My only problem is that none of my friends share my rent-free status so there’s no one to hang out with. I’m sure there are people who have jobs that allow them to pay the rent and have money left over to go out regularly, while still having some spare time. I don’t know any of those people. Every time I call one of my friends to go out on the town, he either has to work one of his three jobs, or he is too broke to afford anything but Raman noodles.

Not paying rent makes me an outsider. Everyone else is battling this ugly, savings-devouring monster and I’m on the sidelines. Everyone else is panicking, searching for a good lease or a sublet so they don’t have to move to a Bushwick warehouse or (gulp) Queens. And I live on the snazziest block in Clinton Hill rent free.

Actually, never mind. When I put it that way, I probably shouldn’t complain.

Harry Cheadle is a student at the Pratt Institute. He had better be saving money.

©2008 The Brooklyn Paper