We were at a loss. No idea where to go or what to do. Our list of problems felt totally overwhelming:
1.I started a new job the next morning (it was around 9pm by then). 2.We had a moving truck filled with our belongings, which we had to return in five days. 3.We had no apartment or place to live. It was like treading water and someone decided to throw us a dumbbell. Reggie seemed genuinely sorry. He thought the lease was a done deal. It was all the real estate agent’s fault, he said, and the proper paperwork hadn’t been filed and he needed a couple of days to dot the I’s and cross the t’s. If we could just stay in a hotel in the meantime, we could move in promptly. So, our first night in NY, we scrambled to find a hotel nearby with a parking lot large enough to park our moving truck. We were exhausted and took the first, nearest hotel we could find. The hotel was awful—and could be a long story in itself—but it was inexpensive, close to the subway and our moving truck fit in the lot. Before sleeping, I scrounged up suitable clothes for work the next day and we collapsed into bed. The next three days are still a blurry fever dream. Neither of us could eat or sleep. While I started my job—trying to retain a semblance of professionalism to mask the terror I truly felt—Cam was in constant contact with Reggie for housing updates, calling on available apartments, and—the worst case scenario—looking at storage facilities if we ran out of time with our truck. Finally, after 3 days of cheap hotel living, we got the call from Reggie: we could move in. We were thankful to finally have a foundation. We cleared out the space, moved our furniture in and set up house, and for a couple of weeks, we were good—even happy—in the space. Now, when we initially spoke to Reggie on the arrangement, we understood the top levels would be rented as a crashpad. We were cool with that, as we had our own entrance and separate space, but we thought it would be for fellow FAs. Whenever Cam had rented the crashpad from Reggie in the past, her stays were infrequent (only used when she needed it, which amounted to two or three times a month) so we wrongly assumed it would be relatively quiet much of the time. What Reggie didn’t disclose was his plan to cram as many people into the top floors as he could, filling every available inch with as many bunkbeds as space would allow, and then, he even hired a contractor to place false walls into living spaces to maximize the rentable space. And on top of flight attendants, he rented out to anyone with a pulse. Anyone with need of a place to crash. Anyone who couldn’t afford a traditional apartment. There were college kids, international students and day laborers, but it also attracted seedier folks as well. We weren’t happy and started looking for an alternative arrangement. That’s when Reggie proposed for us to sublet again.
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January 2021
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