By: Hannah Davis, Staff Writer
Here at The Peak, we were lucky enough to have been given tours of some of the most incredible student homes in Vancouver. The following are true experiences of renters in the area, exposing the wondrous beauty one is subjected to when renting on a budget.
The one that builds character
Designed in the style of what we like to call DIY-CHIC, this home features exposed everything: exposed brick, exposed wall beams, and even exposed sky. To get a mental image of this one-of-a-kind apartment, imagine Grandma’s cute, picturesque cottage on the edge of a beautiful forest, and then imagine, situated deep inside that forest, an abandoned lodge once inhabited by a serial killer who hated interior design. The residents shared that they needed to get a tetanus shot before being medically cleared to live in this building.
“Overall,” the young-adult roommates say, “this place has really made us stronger.”
Six times the bedrooms, six times the beauty
Residents of this gorgeously humid apartment have ingeniously converted a one-bedroom, one-resident home into a six-resident sex palace. The living room has been divided into four sections. Two students share the couch as their bed, while two others share the coffee table. Similarly, two residents share the dining room, one on the table, one underneath.
What about the actual bedroom? It is the designated room for when one roommate knows they are going to be having sex that night.
Exciting mystery-filled basement suite
This basement suite has charm, history, AND mystery. Years upon years of water damage has wreaked havoc on the electrical circuit of a ceiling fan that’s now been duct-taped to the ceiling in case it were to ever come crashing down. The wallpaper is so old it comes off in flakes, revealing newspapers from the 1920s that were used to insulate the walls. Generations of macaroni and dark brown splatters (tomato soup?) are crusted on the backsplash behind the stove. Unfortunately, those same soup splatters are also found in the bathroom, hallway and one of the bedrooms. It is sort of suspicious how much the previous resident loved soup.
The home’s inherent mystery comes partly from a regularly expanding patch of mould that grows on the inside of an old shower curtain (is it dangerous? Maybe!), partly from a rhythmic tapping heard every night from 12:08a.m to 1:13a.m, but mostly the mystery comes from a brown duffel bag sitting in the middle of the hallway.
“We do not know where that came from,” says one roommate. “It was there when we moved in.”
The other chimes in: “We are too afraid to touch it.”
The mystery bag will stay there permanently.
