Life in New York by Laura Pedersen

Author:Laura Pedersen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing
Published: 2016-01-05T07:00:00+00:00

is to rent a fifth-floor walk-up knowing the folks can’t make it much past the third-floor landing. And New York parents who finally got their children out of rent-controlled apartments can now safely guard the door from any boomerang offspring or laundry stops.

But the doorman system cannot save you from houseguest requests. New York is the number-one tourist destination in the United States. As a result, New Yorkers host more visitors than anyone else, and yet we have the least space for them. With hotels starting at $300 a night plus hefty taxes, long-lost friends and distant relatives are constantly in touch. To New Yorkers, Facebook is a houseguest delivery system. People insist they want to see you, and when you say you’ll be away that week they say, “That’s okay, just leave the keys.” And they think they’re being generous by saying that you can come visit them in Duluth, Moose Jaw, or Fishkill anytime at all. Fortunately or not, health quarantines are pretty much a thing of the past, and if you tell people a plague has fallen on your apartment they’re certain to declare immunity. Saying that people are already there just leads to, “When are they leaving?” or “We’ll just sleep on the couch.” Likewise construction: “When is it over?”

The way to get rid of unwanted houseguests, or “house pests” as they’re known in studio apartments, is to claim you already have vermin, aka bedbugs. It keeps people out but also markedly reduces your own invitations, and thus is a way of slimming down your social life all around if you’re in the mood. My neighbor had bedbugs, and so Henry the bedbug-sniffing beagle came to examine my apartment. Henry declared the place bug free, but in the meantime he peed on a couch and an armchair and crapped in my bedroom, so I’m not all that convinced about his training. The fact that I had my female dogs locked up in the bathroom may have had something to do with his wanting to leave his contact information, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Dating is hard in New York, even for beagles, but he’s clearly open to a workplace romance.

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