The New York Times, February 17, 2020: They didn’t mind renting a fixer-upper, but three years later they’re still working on it.
After three years of living in a $1,050-a-month one-bedroom with a shared kitchen in Ridgewood, Queens, Luiza and Ken Li were ready for an upgrade.
“Our incomes had gone up substantially, and we realized we could afford our own kitchen,” said Ms. Li, an editor at a test-prep company. But they didn’t want to pay more than $2,000 a month, a budget that wasn’t turning up much they really liked.
When they asked their landlord if he had any available apartments, he somewhat reluctantly told them about an apartment in Ridgewood that he would be willing to rent to them for $1,800 a month. It was a large, railroad-style unit with one bedroom and an adjoining room that could be used as an office, and its own kitchen and backyard.
The catch? They would have to take it as is.
