Rules: Apartment Interviewing

My roommate moved out a couple weeks ago, so I’ve been compelled to advertise her room and interview candidates to replace her. It’s been a nightmare process and consequently I’m bringing you some guidelines for interviewing to move into an apartment as a new roommate:

1. Don’t be proud to be unemployed. I don’t necessarily fault you for not having a job – I was laid off late last year and didn’t work for eight months – but I don’t want to hear that you’re “proud to be a bum” or anything to that effect. Tell me you’re changing careers or something, anything, so I don’t worry that you’re not going to be able to pay the rent.
2. Don’t criticize the apartment. I didn’t build it, nor even do I own it (I just rent it and sublet one bedroom out). If it’s too noisy from the traffic outside, if it’s too unrenovated, if it’s too anything or not enough anything that I can’t control – don’t bother telling me; I already know. Just let me know you’re not interested so I can deal with someone else who is.
3. Don’t try to negotiate. I get that you can be successful negotiating in Israel over all sorts of things, but the rent on this apartment is not one of them. I sublet the bedroom for exactly half of what I pay; there’s no wiggle room and I am not profiting from the endeavor. In fact, I’ve probably lost money to every single roommate who’s ever lived here.
4. Don’t pretend to be interested if you’re not. Why do people do this? It doesn’t hurt my feelings if you don’t want to live with me, or if you hate my dog, or if you think my apartment sucks. That’s life; you’ll find another apartment and I’ll find another roommate. But I want to find a roommate quickly, and if you distract me by pretending to be interested, you are actually costing me a lot of money. So get lost!
5. Don’t hide important information from me. If I ask you why you’re leaving your current apartment, you can be honest and tell me it’s because you have a problem with your roommate. Frankly, it will affect my decision about you, but it’s my prerogative to ask this question and your responsibility to answer it graciously – and if I find out you lied to me when you were interviewing, I’ll have no problem just to throw you out with 30 days’ notice, since I’m taking first and last month’s rent from you anyway.
6. Don’t ask stupid question on the telephone. I do you a favor by listing my telephone number in the advertisement; don’t abuse it. If you ask the exact size in square meters of a bedroom I’ve advertised as “huge,” my answer will be: come to see the apartment. If you ask whether my dog is nice, my answer will be: come to see the apartment. If you ask if I keep the place clean, my answer will be: come to see the apartment. In short, every dumb question you have can be answered in two minutes just by taking a look around.
7. Don’t bring a family member to look at apartments with you. The main reason girls bring their sisters along is so the (invariably older and uglier) sister can play “bad cop,” picking problems with the apartment to point out, and then trying to strong-arm me into a negotiation. Besides the problems I have with people criticizing the apartment and trying to negotiate, it’s awkward and uncomfortable for me to meet a prospective roommate with her family member there. There are often private and sensitive issues that come up between new roommates and I need to feel free to discuss them – smoking and drug use, overnight guests, etc – without getting false answers because big sis is listening in. Moreover, anyone who’s not mature and responsible enough to make a decision about subletting a room on her own is not mature and responsible enough to sublet a room. By bringing her family members, she’s sending the message that she’ll involve a family member every time an issue comes up that needs to be discussed.

Tagged as: apartment, drugs, Ethics, family, Girls, rent, roommate, sisters, smoking, unemployment