It's true. That scary angry potty monster with big gnarly teeth that we were afraid of as small children, the one who was going to gobble us up if we sat on the toilet (come on now, I _know_ this was not just me...), He's REAL. Yes, that's right. I've found him. He resides in Paris. And to make matters worse, he has cousins. They are apparently a recognized population in Paris. They have rights, and no one is allowed to get rid of them. And they live in any apartment being rented for less than €800/m. Sometimes they are even presented as part of the "charm".
I wish I had brought my camera with me today as I went apartment hunting. For that matter, I wish I'd thought to take pictures of all of the apartments I have seen. I'm having nightmares about some of them. I was warned (thank you, Sam) to not expect to live in something that was up to Boston standards. I understood that to mean my room will be very small and things will likely be kind of old, a bit funky. I did not understand that to mean that the toilet will be either a 1/4mile walk down an unheated hall, or two flights down, and worse than the public pay toilets in Times Square (the one I saw today was so bad I burst out laughing). I did not understand that to mean that the kitchen would be an experiment in the cohabitation practices of crud and bacteria, or a battleground between the forces of man and fungus. I did not understand that to mean that where the toilet is part of the apartment it would be the kind of thing one might find on a cross-country train trip where you shower standing over the toilet. Except the toilet does not have a lid, so you will stand on the crumbling floor instead.
My perception of the French has been that they are a people who are very particular about the conditions of their environments - that everything must be clean and orderly, "just so", and well kept. Aside from the chain-smoking and the 1/wk showering habits, we are talking about the culture that is synonymous with fashion. Paris, the fashion capital. OK - Milan might have stolen that title in recent years, but still. And yet, these are also a people who apparently have no qualms about renting apartments that are barely habitable to young desperate students. The French seem to have 1000 regulations pertaining to every tiny detail of life, and the country seems built on red tape. But there do not seem to be any regulations regarding the conditions of rental apartments. If there are... no one is reporting these landlords and they are bleeding people dry.
There was a studio apt I looked at today that itself was in good shape - a recent renovation, but the toilet was - no kidding - down the hall, round the corner, up ahead and to the left. Think typical college dorm length hallway. The toilet was frightening close to that toilet from the famous scene in Trainspotting. That is the aforementioned toilet where the guy opened the door to show the bathroom and I laughed. I couldn't help it. It was shocking. The studio itself was on the 6th floor of a building (which is actually the 7th according to the US way of counting floors), no elevator. The entire thing was 9m squared. If you need a reference point, that's maybe a little larger than the bathroom I had in my apt at 19 Trull St. For those of you in NYC, that's not even as big as Josh & Julianna's living room in Brooklyn. In that tiny space you had: stove, cabinets, sink, shower stall, work table, "closet", and lofted narrow short bed. This went for €400/m (granted, it was across the street from the Louvre). Until I saw the toilet I actually thought: well, maybe this would work. Then I saw the toilet. I can't live somewhere where I am going to be avoiding using the toilet.
Tomorrow I have three more places to see. Cross your fingers for me and wish me luck. It's a dang good thing I am an optimist...
a tout la monde de Paris, a plus!
When I lived in Scotland I had a toilet down the hall in that condition for a while. You get used to it...plus, it's temporary. If the rest of the apartment is tolerable (i.e., you found yourself thinking it might work)...well, you might want to think about it...and then just do your business at school as much as possible, LOL. I remember the staff shower at the hotel I lived at and worked at...ugh. Interestingly, my best living conditions came when I lived at and worked for hostels!
ReplyDeleteHmm, I hadn't thought about living/working at Hostels. Not a bad idea actually. I'll see what I can find around here. As of today, things are looking up... so maybe it'll work out well. =)
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