What’s Your Nonnegotiable?

When I started hunting for an apartment, I thought I was prepared. I met my realtor daily – checkbook in hand – ready to pounce on anything that didn’t inspire flashbacks to Hostel.

You see, New Yorkers have astonishingly low standards for our living conditions. We expect slanted floorboards. Heating pipes are exposed, burn-inducing death traps…that give the place character! And no dishwasher? No problem. Why else do we have these opposable thumbs?

Then there’s the space issue.

If you’ve ever been to New York City, you know that many of us live in tiny boxes. Realtors have euphemistically deemed these to be  “junior apartments,” a ploy so successful that a friend of mine once signed a lease on a locker. Craigslist uses the word “cozy.” Those who’ve lived here for at least three years no longer remembers what Harry Potter was complaining about – all Privet Drive needed was storage-smart furniture from Ikea, et voilà.

The apartment situation, however, is in stark contrast to the high expectations we maintain for everything else: dating, fashion, the amount of chicken that Chop’t puts in our salads. Surely if we have standards in regards to a cubed poultry quota, there’s room for pushback when it comes to our home.

So, for my third New York apartment, I was ready to compromise on just about anything. But not on my tub.

You would be amazed at the number of New York apartments that don’t have bathtubs. Considered by (anti-feminist) building managers across the city to be “wastes of space,” my beloved Porcelain Paradise is often forsaken in exchange for a few extra feet of superfluous floor space.

I dream about my bathtub the way some girls dream about shoes. Yet as I described my desired tub to the realtor sitting across from me, I could actually hear the weather-warped doors slamming shut. Clawed feet? No way. A faucet that spouts clear water? Let’s not be picky. My final mandate (to find a tub with fewer than 15 previous bathers) garnered an actual laugh.

But tub time is important. I’ve yet to master the art of shaving my legs in the shower. I also find that waiting for a face mask to dry can be overwhelming when simultaneously focused on standing. And where else is it appropriate to catch up on decade old episodes of Gilmore Girls? (I know, everywhere. But I’m proving a point.)

Not to mention, showers are extremely dangerous because you could slip and fall and your dubstep-blasting neighbor would never even hear your cries.

I’m willing to compromise a lot on my next pad. The list of expendables includes, but is not limited too: rent controlled apartments, functioning light fixtures and any roommate who doesn’t understand my right to lock them out of the bathroom for hours at a time. But my tub? That’s nonnegotiable.

What are you unwilling to compromise?

Follow Emily Siegel on Twitter; Image via Glamour Spain