Why I Rented a Haunted Apartment in New York City

[Amina] I can't imagine living anywhere else.

For a black artist, New York has provided a space

that like no other city has.

This was the home of Lorraine Hansberry, Basquiat,

Biggie Smalls.

You can walk around parts of Harlem and Brooklyn

and you can taste the rich history of the neighborhood.

I'm sorry, is that really cheesy?

Okay.

So when I finished my master's at Yale,

I really couldn't imagine going anywhere else, you know,

I needed to be here, you know, with like people like me.

But it's New York city and this place is really expensive.

I tried the roommate thing, it's just...

it doesn't work for me.

You know, I lived in this one place,

it was like six people, three cats, one bathroom.

And it was like 1500 a month. Like, no.

So I knew like for my sanity and for my art,

I needed a place to myself,

but on an Applebee bartender salary,

that proved to be a little bit of a challenge.

When I found this place, it was a studio,

laundry in the basement, 1150 a month,

I was like, this is too good to be true.

And it was.

This bitch is haunted, like really fucking haunted.

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.

I was so freaked the fuck out the first week,

I slept in the park.

I don't really know where to go.

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.

And it's a studio.

So it's like living in a clown car of hell.

Where are you? Did you fuck with with my wifi?

It's watching something.

Oh, so I'm lying. You guys think I'm lying?

Well then if I'm lying, explain this!

Shit, it was there before, there was like a,

a fingerprint on the wall.

Then I started looking at other places.

[Man] Hey, welcome.

This is the apartment.

[Amina] Okay, yeah.

[Man] The shitter doesn't work,

but you can use the fire escape, just as good.

The shower.

There's some mold in there, I'm growing it for a lawsuit.

Don't touch it.

[Amina] All right.

[Man] Cat food?

[Amina] Um I'm full. Thank you.

[Man] Okay.

Maybe I'm looking at this all wrong.

This is Bed-Stuy.

These ghosts are black. I'm black.

I'm not going to exorcize these ghosts from their home.

Maybe we have more in common.

And it turns out we do.

We all love history. You know, we all love the arts.

We all love Mac and cheese night. We love the movie Casper.

We don't like Ghostbusters.

Yeah, it's just like any other type of roommate, really.

It's just, you don't see them and you're really surprised

every time they make themselves clear to you, so.

One of them actually might've been a bartender

at an Applebee's too, which is pretty cool, we talk craft.

Like sometimes I'll just like refer to them as like

my ancestors, say they came before me, we live like family.

You know? And like once I started looking at things

that way it really changed.

We've started collaborating now,

which has been kind of cool.

They really helped me grow as an artist.

I communicate, I asked the ghosts what they want me to draw.

And in this case,

this gentleman in particular wanted to do sort of like

a portrait of the two of us.

It's me, bald, with the ghost.

Truly has been like a blessing in disguise.

We have a podcast.

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3.

I'm really excited about the interview

we have for this week.

Welcome back to Give A Ghost A Podcast!

Jim, I can't, I can't just interview you.

Why don't we go into our word from our sponsor,

and by the time we get back,

maybe I'll know what the fuck Jim wants.

Believe it or not, everything is perfect.

And I know this sounds like a really bad,

like nineties joke, like,

black girls be like this and white girls be like this,

but like, for real, there are white ghosts,

and they're insane.

[Interviewer] How do you know that they're white?

Oh, I know that they're white.

Like, remember that Brooklyn was settled by the Dutch

and not like chill, Amsterdam, 420,

like there's a whole-ass scary family

with like twins and shit, like in my apartment.

My grandma, Mammers, she bought me this vase

on a trip to Majorca. They broke it. The ghosts broke it.

My grandma's dead. I can't be like Mammogram,

go back to Majorca, buy me a new one!

Bye!

I try to connect with them.

But if you were a Dutch Protestant settler

in the 1700s who came over here,

stole land from Indigenous people and you were like,

this is mine now,

how do you think you would feel when you saw

a smart, beautiful, free black woman living her best life,

where your disease-infested little shack used to be.

I imagine not too happy.

[Interviewer] Are you going to move?

Am I gonna move? I pay 1150 a month for this place.

They can go fuck themselves.

Godverdomme, Joost. Such a drama queen.

I can't have like my, my parents visit, you know,

because like Dad has a heart condition,

and if one of them, you know, did something like...

Then my dad becomes a ghost in my apartment.

And like, that would suck. Like really, really suck.

♪ Upbeat music ♪