Big Sunny Room in 2 Bed Coop Apartments (Shared Housing)

Big, sunny bedroom in partially occupied Ocean Parkway 2br

Do you want to have A family around, just not Your family? Our two-parent, two-teen household is spilling into a second apartment in our building. It has a guest room for us, a bedroom for... you, lots of shared space, and a little washer and dryer.

Foot traffic:
None of us are your full-time roommate, but all 4 of us will be in and out of the apartment, one or two at a time. We'll do laundry there. Sometimes we’ll work from the guest room. Sometimes one of us will sleep over for a weekend. Sometimes a kid will hang around watching youtube (with earbuds). Sometimes a literal family guest will stay in the guest room. This is a bedroom in a family home, but none of us currently sleep there full-time, so you would be the main person with shampoo in the shower. We are not a party crew, and we are glad to keep quiet for studying.

Your room:
Your room is 12 by 15 feet, 180sf, though some of it is taken up by a six-foot wide, 30-inch deep closet that goes up to the 9-foot ceiling, leaving 165 sf of open floor. There are two sunny west/southwest facing windows. They look out on multi-lane traffic, plus a lot of trees and sky. Unfurnished. We can take you to ikea if you want to pick stuff out. The wood floors are nice, but a building rule requires rugs over 80% of them to reduce noise.

Shared spaces:
The living room, kitchen, and bath are shared. There isn’t a tv in the living room, or shelving, or decor, and for us that’s good, that's minimalism. We'll be in and out of the bathroom and kitchen. We’ll store stuff in the kitchen and cook there sometimes, but it’s not our 12-meals-a-day cooking environment.

Utilities:
We just put in a new bedroom window a/c. In heat season you will more likely be too warm than too cold—steam radiators. Half of gas, electric, and wifi is about 75/month. Maybe higher now that there's a/c?

Building:
The building is a family-oriented walkup coop, fairly diverse, and lgbt friendly. There are multiple outdoor spaces, including front yard and courtyard, plus a long, skinny back courtyard (or is it an alley?) where people do some veg gardening. Take a raised bed, there are extra ones. The front yard is mostly decorative, but the courtyard is comfortable. There’s a bigger laundry room in the basement. And just to repeat the word walkup again, it’s a walkup. Building quiet hours are 10pm to 9am, and we have to take them seriously because the super lives directly below us.

Neighborhood:
You can walk around the block and hit laundromats, delis, coffee, and basic takeout without crossing the street. More coffee, some bars, and a bookstore within a few blocks. Bigger grocery stores and more serious restaurants 5-10 minutes walk. Ten minutes in either direction to Greenwood Cemetery or Prospect Park.

Transit:
We are 0.3 miles to either the Fort Hamilton F/G (the directions say 8-minute walk ) or Church Ave F/G (9 minutes). The B and D are farther, 0.7 miles (16 minutes), but the bus can often get to them faster than that. There are also express buses to lower Manhattan that get on the highway after our block and go nonstop. There are two Citibike racks within a block.

About us:
Nerds for sure. Our current employers include: a bookstore, a publisher, a parenting group. The kids are pretty mild for teenagers. So far.

About you:
We enjoy students and artists, and we plan to enjoy meeting you, whoever you are. We'll have to collaborate on cleaning—are you ok to collaborate on cleaning? And you'd have to live with our varied schedules and with kids. You ok with kids?

Long-range stayability:
If you were happy here and wanted to stay, it’s possible to get past the building’s two-year sublet limit. If any one of our hosting family eventually lived full-time in the guest room, then you could legally switch from a "sublet" to a longer-term "roommate."

Photo footnote:
Please disregard the construction dust. Also the bathroom isn't bad at all, just not photogenic right now.

Possibles and impossibles:
Couples, impossible. Loudness or hosting hookups or parties, also impossible. Small, lovely neutered dogs maybe possible? Cats, impossible (allergies). Basement bike storage possible. Smoking, impossible.

How-to:
Because we’re a family and because it’s a coop building, this takes more oomph than an average shared rental.
Steps:
1. Come see if it’s any kind of match.
2. If so, meet the kids by facetime or zoom.
3. If that works, we'll send you the application form.
4. Enter the paperwork tunnel: Do you have two school or work-related recommendation letters? Great, PDF them. If not, have a boss and/or family friend write some. Filed taxes? Great, attach the top page. Ditto bank statements. Ditto pay stubs.
5. Send it all back and the board will approve it. (We're on the board.)
6. Sign a lease.

The room is open now--there's no one moving out--so you could get in anytime the paperwork is done. Read More