‘That’ll be $4000 a month’: New New Yorker breaks down in hysterics after seeing shoebox of an apartment

One sure-for way to go viral on TikTok is to post about how cool, unique, or weird your house is. Apartment and room tours take up a large market online, with some accounts devoted entirely to people flexing their homes.

For this TikToker, on the other hand, the key to the viral video was quite the opposite. Ariana Gardizy shared a five-second tour of her new New York City apartment, which really came down to one room with a rogue stove in the corner. In the background, she and her mom can’t help but crack up at the tiny home, captioned “POV: You move into an apartment in NYC.”

Viewers and commenters seemed to relate to the struggle of renting in the city all too well, many of them joking that that shoe box would probably cost upwards of $4,000 a month because of the location. Others compared the size to their own first apartments and even college dorms. They even begged to see how the decor ended up and what the price was actually like.

The creator was quick to let her commenters know that at the very least it was in a nice area, but the struggle for an affordable New York apartment is real.

In fact, according to RentCafe, NYC renters pay up to 80% more than the average renter across the United States and 38% more than renters across the state of New York. Even basic necessities like food, clothes, and groceries come out to be 28% more than the national average. New York City is often an ideal place to work and study, but it is becoming an increasingly expensive place to live.

That’s probably why so many commenters encouraged Ariana that, even though it was small, her apartment was a great first place to live in NYC and honestly could be so much worse.