Apartment Hunting in the Age of Social Media

Our pal Haley writes in the New York Times Magazine about apartment hunting and being asked by prospective landlords for her social media accounts:

The first time someone with an apartment available asked me for my Twitter handle, I laughed; the second time, I became confused; and by the third, I was perplexed and annoyed. Logistically, this made no sense. I have a distinctive last name and am easily found via a quick Google search. Couldn’t they just creep on me silently, like a normal person? I wondered, perturbed and embarrassed, realizing that my most recent tweet was a joke about penises and my most recent Instagram post was a selfie of my recently dyed purple hair.

The men and women who held my fate in their hands were going to look at this information and judge me: “She’s a pervert, and she makes bizarre aesthetic choices with regard to her personal appearance,” they would think. I froze under the pressure. I didn’t know what to do: flood my feed with the kind of tweets a landlord might like to see? “Just took out the trash for my neighbor. I love lending a helping hand!”

I don’t know about you, but I find it unnerving that someone would even ask you for your social media accounts in a situation where you should be judged on the fact that you have a stable job and the ability to pay rent? I could see this happening if someone were looking for a prospective roommate (and even so, Haley is right that they should just creep silently), but it’s a little much for circumstances in which you are renting or subletting the entire apartment for yourself.

Like Haley, my Twitter account is mostly me making the occasional joke or linking to things I’ve worked on or read, and my Instagram is mostly photos of other people’s cats; they’re not really representative of who I am as a person. And if, for whatever reason you do come off as weird or brash on social media — well, weird and brash people need places to live too. Who wants to be rejected for an apartment because you tweet too much about how koalas are amazing?

Photo: Tim Lucas

Support The Billfold

The Billfold continues to exist thanks to support from our readers. Help us continue to do our work by making a monthly pledge on Patreon or a one-time-only contribution through PayPal.