美国毕业生也饱尝蜗居滋味
Having graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology and vacated her dorm room, Danica Ciccariello needed to find a new place to live last summer.
去年夏天，丹妮卡·奇卡雷洛(Danica Ciccariello)从时装技术学院(Fashion Institute of Technology)毕业并搬出宿舍后，需要找一个新的地方住。
A friend connected her with Teresa Sanacore and Sarah Pascuzzi, newly graduated from Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y.
一位朋友把她介绍给了特雷莎·圣阿科雷(Teresa Sanacore)和莎拉·帕斯库奇(Sarah Pascuzzi)。她们都是劳顿维尔(Loudonville)锡耶纳学院(Siena College)的应届毕业生。
THE RENTERS From left, Sarah Pascuzzi, Danica Ciccariello and Teresa Sanacore have settled in.
租客合影：(左起)莎拉·帕斯库奇、丹妮卡·奇卡雷洛和特雷莎·圣阿科雷都已搬了进来。
The three joined forces, figuring it would be easier and cheaper to find a two-bedroom to share among three than a one-bedroom to share between two.
三个人一拍即合。她们认为，三人合租一套两居室会比两个人合租一套一居室更加容易，也更便宜。
Wandering around the East Village in the early summer, having received no answer to their knock at an apartment they were scheduled to see, the three young women stumbled upon a father moving his daughter into a walk-up building. He invited them to see her place. Four roommates were sharing a three-bedroom “flexed” into a four-bedroom, similar to what they sought.
初夏时节，她们在东村(East Village)四处游荡，本打算去看一套公寓，但是敲了门却没人应。三个姑娘碰巧遇到一位父亲在帮女儿搬家。房子位于一处无电梯楼盘里。他邀请她们进去看看女儿的住处。那是一套被“收缩”成了四居室的三居室，有四人合租，跟她们想找的那种房子差不多。
They inquired about the rental agent who had helped the foursome, and were directed to Gina Majore Bonner of Miron Properties. Within hours, the three were meeting with her.
她们打听了帮助四人找到三居室的租房经纪人，由此联系上了房地产公司Miron Properties的吉娜·马约雷·邦纳(Gina Majore Bonner) 。几小时内，三个人就跟她见了面。
They weren’t sure where to hunt. “The only places I’d heard of were the East Village and the Upper East Side,” said Ms. Sanacore, who works at a metal trading company. So she left potential locations to her roommates, who selected the East Village and the Lower East Side.
她们不确定该在哪里找房子。“我只听说过东村和上东区，”就职于一家金属交易公司的圣阿科雷说。因此她把其它潜在地点的房源留给室友去找，室友选择了东村和下东区。
Their monthly budget was $3,000 to $3,600, which was “ridiculously low” for a three-bedroom in a hot neighborhood, Ms. Bonner said. But they were likely to find a two-bedroom that would “flex” into three. Partitioning a living area, they had decided, was preferable to having two of them share a bedroom.
她们的每月预算是3000到3600美元(约合人民币18362到22035元)，邦纳说，这个价位对于热门小区的三居室来说“低得可笑”。但是要找一套可以隔成三居室的两居室，还是很有希望的。她们断定，将客厅区隔断，比让其中两个人共用一间卧室要好。
If the bedrooms were of unequal sizes, Ms. Pascuzzi, who works at a home décor wholesaler, wanted the biggest bedroom so she could fit in her bed, which had a sleigh frame.
如果几间卧室不一样大，那么帕斯库奇就想要最大的那间，这样就可以放下自己那张雪橇床了。她就职于一间家居装潢批发店。
“I call it my Christmas bed,” she said. She was willing to pay up to $1,500 a month, the amount paid by a good friend who shared a Lower East Side three-bedroom with roommates.
“我把它称为我的‘圣诞床’。”她说。她愿意支付的最高价格是每月1500美元(约合人民币9181元)，她有个好朋友，就是花这个价钱在下东区与人合租了一套三居室。
In general, the women were prepared to make sacrifices. “We are young,” said Ms. Ciccariello, who works at an interior design company. “We can get away with cutting back spacewise in order to get a better price. As long as a living room was a little more rectilinear, there could be a wall set up.”
大体上讲，三位女士已经做好了牺牲的准备。“我们还年轻，”就职于室内设计公司的奇卡雷洛说，“只要价钱合适，房子小一点也无所谓。只要客厅里额外的方形空间稍大一点，就可以用一面墙隔开来。”
They visited more than a dozen places, often getting their hopes up. “But each one had that one thing that was wrong with it,” Ms. Sanacore said — tiny bedrooms, railroad layouts, inflexible living rooms.
她们看了不下六套房子，每次都满怀希望。“但是每套房子都有这样或那样的缺陷。”圣阿科雷说——有的卧室太小，有的是列车式户型(没有走廊的狭长公寓，各房间像火车车厢般连成一条，因此如果不通过一个房间就无法到其他房间——译注)，有的客厅布局不能灵活调整。
At first glance, a two-bedroom on Stanton Street seemed suitable. The rent was $3,595. The place was easily convertible to a three-bedroom. It had a nice kitchen and good light.
乍看之下，斯塔顿街(Staton Street)的一套房租3595美元(约合人民币22004元)的两居室似乎很合适。这里很容易改成三居室，厨房很不错，采光也好。
But then there was the bathroom: tiny, with a toilet topped by a minuscule wash basin topped by a mirrored medicine chest. All were dumbstruck.
但看到浴室，问题来了：面积太小，里面的马桶上方有个极小的洗手池，洗手池上方是个带镜面的壁橱。三人目瞪口呆。
“You could fit, like, one dish if you did dishes in there,” Ms. Ciccariello said. “It was the oddest thing. If we washed our face, water would be dripping everywhere.”
“如果在里面洗碗，估计大约能放下一个盘子，”奇卡雷洛说，“这是最怪异的。要是我们洗脸的话，水就会溅得到处都是。”
They just couldn’t live that way.
她们真的没法那样生活。
“That apartment cracked us up for hours,” Ms. Bonner said.
“那套公寓让我们低落了好几个小时。”邦纳说。
An actual three-bedroom on Avenue B, with new appliances, was everyone’s favorite. At around $3,340 a month, it had a dining area but no real living room.
B大道(Avenue B)有一套真正的三居室，配了新家电，三个人都很喜欢。房租大约是每月3340美元(约合人民币20443元)，公寓里有一片用餐区，但是没有真正的客厅。
The women, who all had parents as guarantors, rushed to apply. But someone else was given the apartment. “Seeing how quickly it slipped through our fingers was discouraging,” Ms. Pascuzzi said.
三位女士都有家长作为担保人，于是赶紧着手申请。但是有人捷足先登了。“看着它很快就被抢走了，我们感觉很沮丧。”帕斯库奇说。
On they went to a place in the East Village for $2,800 a month, substantially less than most of what they had seen. The kitchen was comparatively big, with counter space and room for a table.
她们接着去看了东村的一套房子，每月房租是2800美元(约合人民币17138元)，比她们看过的多数房子的租金都低很多。厨房相对较大，有橱柜空间和放一张桌子的地方。
The two bedroom spaces, mirror images, had no windows. Or closets. Or doors, though they did have doorways.
两间卧室空间就像彼此的翻版，都没有窗户，也没有壁橱，也没有门，只是有门廊而已。
But the living area was rectilinear, allowing the creation of a third bedroom.
不过客厅区是直线型的，可以隔出第三间卧室。
Ms. Bonner encouraged them to take it, saying that, with the low rent, “you are going to have money to spend to experience the city.” So they signed on for a year, paying a broker fee of 12 percent of a year’s rent, or a bit more than $4,000. Because all the rooms are comparable in size, they split the rent evenly, at $933 each, with one paying $934 on a rotating basis.
邦纳鼓励她们租下房子，她说，租金这么低，“你们就有钱体验这座城市的生活了。”于是她们签下了一年租约，支付给经纪人年租金12%的酬劳——略高于4000美元(约合人民币24483元)。由于所有房间的大小都差不多，三个人平摊了租金，两人支付933美元(约合人民币5711元)，一个人支付 934美元(约合人民币5717元)，多的那部分大家轮流出。
The kitchen is not as large as it seemed. “We thought there was so much space, but we ended up filling up the counter,” Ms. Sanacore said. It holds a microwave, a coffee maker, a wine rack, a dish rack, a toaster and, because that’s where the most daylight is, two plants.
厨房并不像表面上看起来的那么大。“我们以为空间很大，但结果还是把橱柜都塞满了。”圣阿科雷说。柜面上放了一个微波炉、一台咖啡机、一个酒架、一个餐具架、一台烤面包机，在阳光照射最充足的地方还放了两盆植物。
Ms. Sanacore has a living-room window in her spot, which is sectioned off with a shoji screen and thick curtains.
圣阿科雷的地盘，是用一面日式屏障及几块厚窗帘从客厅里隔出来的，里面有一扇客厅窗户。
Ms. Ciccariello and Ms. Pascuzzi (whose Christmas bed didn’t fit after all) have curtains instead of doors.
奇卡雷洛和帕斯库奇(她的圣诞床根本放不下)的房间则挂起了窗帘，没有门。
