Virginia K. Smith

New York's most expensive neighborhoods to rent, mapped (Curbed NY)

You probably need a glow-in-the-dark toilet seat in your life (NYDN)

Note: BrickUnderground is in no way affiliated with New York City public housing. If you are interested in applying to this or other affordable housing developments, please go to the NYC Housing Connect website for information and instructions.

Every so often, I still get chipper "professional, responsible roommate wanted!" emails from a listserv I joined when I first moved to the city. My friend and I always end up forwarding the listings back and forth to each other, speculating about who the hell these entry-level publishing employees are who can drop $1,300 for a room in an apartment with three other people, in Crown Heights? (Seriously.) But the answer here is pretty obvious: people who aren't looking that hard, and whose parents are paying a healthy chunk of their rent—or all of it.

If you've got $3,888,888, you can snap up F. Scott Fitzgerald's former Long Island party house (WSJ)

If your roommate secretly rents out your room on Airbnb, don't expect the site to help you out (XOjane)

Here's a heartening story about how one Brooklyn woman bikes, recycles, and generally lives off our city's mountains of daily food waste, all adding up to what the Guardian calls a "middle-class class life in New York City on less than $5,000 a year." Encouraging, but be sure not to read the fine print, like the part about how a friend puts her up rent-free in a Crown Heights house, or the small detail about her income property in France.

Queens co-op residents have resorted to setting "booby traps" for a disliked dog (NYP)

A time-honored method for furnishing a starter apartment: hand-me-downs (Apartment Therapy)