- Elisa moved from Paris to a luxury public house in New York City with 15 other people.
- For $2,000 a month, she gets a fully furnished room and common space in a three-story townhouse.
- She enjoys the sense of community with her roommates and doesn’t plan on leaving anytime soon.
The well-known article is based on conversations with Elisa, a partnership manager and business developer living in New York City who asked that only her first name be used to protect her job. The following content has been edited for length and clarity.
I moved from Paris to New York in 2022 while looking for a job at a French startup. Nothing was planned and everything happened very quickly.
I tried to find an apartment while still in Paris, but digging into Facebook groups didn’t make me feel confident, and I was worried about being scammed.
I heard about Cohabs from a good friend from France who lived in one of the houses. Cohabs are shared houses in cities around the world, including a few in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
My friend offered to let me live with her for two weeks so I could look for an apartment, but then I fell in love with someone else who lived there. It helped me make friends instantly.
There was a vacancy, so I moved into the same three-story townhouse that my friend had in Harlem. I like it.
You will be screened before check-in
Before you sign your lease, the Cohabs team will make sure you have the right atmosphere and are there for the right reasons.
The questions were pretty simple: They asked me my age, why I moved to New York, how I heard about Cohabitation, what my previous experiences with roommates were, and what my hobbies were.
You can sign a six month or one year lease, I chose one year.
House rules written into lease
There are some things in a lease that you must agree to that are beyond the scope of a typical lease agreement.
We agreed to pay rent on time, treat others with respect, clean the room when we move out to get our deposit back, keep common spaces organized, wash dishes, organize a housekeeping team, respect each other, let our roommates know when we invite people over, take out the trash, and reduce, Reuse and recycle.
For what I got, the rent was fair to me
I pay $2,000 a month for my 135 square foot, fully furnished room, including all utilities.
I think that’s fair when you consider you’re renting one room plus a huge common space. Each floor has its own furnished open plan kitchen and living room. I shared a bathroom with a roommate, but there are different bathroom layout options depending on your room.
The house feels super homey – it’s clean, the furniture is vintage, and it’s so beautiful. The housekeeping team comes once a week.
There’s also an app for submitting repair requests, so if you have a problem with your coffee machine, for example, you can create a ticket and a member of the Cohabs team will come and help you fix the problem.
The shared spaces are huge: we have a huge backyard with a BBQ, a rooftop with tables, a huge TV room with sofas, a gym and a laundry room.
16 of us live in this house
It sounds crazy when I say I have 15 roommates, but it feels like I’m on the TV show Friends. I love having a small family and friends I can trust in New York.
Many of us are far away from our loved ones and new to New York. Our nationalities are American, Spanish, British and French. The age range is 23 to 32, which sounds like a lot but works well.
Every night when I come home from get off work, people are in the kitchen cooking and eating together. This makes me really happy.
It feels better than a typical share house
When I moved to New York, I was super nervous because I only knew one person, so moving into a house was a relief. My biggest fear is feeling alone so this is the perfect solution.
I’ve lived in shared apartments and houses before, but the sense of community here is much stronger. The Cohabs team makes a point of this – on the first Sunday of every month they give us a brunch to bring everyone together. They also organize activities such as rock climbing together.
The bottom line is respect
We are adults, so we know how to live in community and respect each other. I didn’t see any weird fights or drama.
It’s easy to live together because we have similar lifestyles, but you do need to warn others if you want others to come over.
My family came to visit from Europe and my parents were very impressed with the house. They stayed in a hotel, but if my brother came alone, he would probably stay in the house with me.
We’ve started some traditions of our own
Last Christmas we put up a tree and put our faces on it instead of decorations.
On New Year’s Eve, we all bought a small bottle of champagne and told each other our goals for the year. Whenever one of us achieves that goal, they pop open a bottle of champagne.
My family and friends asked me if I wanted to live somewhere more traditional at some point. The truth is I really don’t know.
