A renter looking for a new apartment says she found one she wanted to sign for immediately, but after touring the “luxury” apartment she saw listed, she realized she’d better not.
In a viral TikTok, Marian V. Quintero (@ipgirly) shares that she was excited to tour an apartment she’d found for a good price in Brickell, the business district of Miami. However, she says she noticed an area behind the kitchen sectioned off with a shower curtain. The current tenant reportedly tried to brush it off but finally called it a “den” after Quintero pressed for more information.
Quintero says that’s when “some random girl pops out,” and the current tenant told her that the other woman would be her roommate.
“And she told me, ‘Oh, the girl is really quiet; you won’t even feel her.’ Mind you, the apartment is for one person, so I was surprised there was even another person living there. … I’m low-key horrified, but I’m already there. I’m like, let me see the rest of the apartment.”
Quintero says another strange thing she noticed during the tour was that the woman’s closet only had about 10 items in it, and they were all luxury items. “What are you wearing if you don’t wash your clothes basically on a weekly basis?” Quintero questions.
Overall, she took the experience as an eye-opening realization about people who portray a luxurious lifestyle while there’s another story behind the curtain—literally.
“This building is one of the nicest buildings in the area, and that’s happening,” she says. “It’s really sad to see people pretending to live a life that they can’t afford. But the moral of the story is don’t believe everything you see.”
The video has over 1 million views and more than 2,400 comments as of publication.
@ipgirly I wanted to RUN out of there #miami #storytime #crazy #economy #housingcrisis #housingmarket ♬ original sound – Ip girly
Many viewers in the comments section are not surprised about the apartment tour situation.
“This has been going on miami for years but lately it’s craziness,” one commenter says.
“My friend lived in his Maserati and all his expensive clothes were in the trunk,” a second writes.
“Miami(an) here…priorities are so reverse here,” another remarks.
“The rent prices in Miami are what’s sad,” someone else states.
According to Apartment List, Miami is the 19th most expensive city to live in, with rent averaging about $1,600 for a one-bedroom unit.
In an email to the Daily Dot, Quintero said she learned from her comments section that “this kind of living situation is apparently quite common across the U.S.”
“It happens in other big cities like NYC, Dallas, Atlanta, LA, etc,” she wrote. “This viral video underscores the present economy situation many people find themselves in.”
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