We Spoke to the New Yorker Who Found a Whole Apartment Behind Her Bathroom Mirror

[Nevilledog]

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Valeria Ricciulli
@ValeRicciulli
I tracked down the New Yorker who found a whole apartment behind her bathroom mirror. 👀 here's everything she told me 👇🏽

We Spoke to the Woman From the Apartment-Behind-Mirror Saga
“I was kind of expecting there to be somebody.”
curbed.com
9:15 PM · Mar 4, 2021

https://www.curbed.com/2021/03/nyc-apartment-tiktok-bathroom-mirror-viral.html

As if a New York City renter’s life weren’t already intimidating enough — what with the rats coming out of the drains and rat skeletons raining from the ceiling, not to mention new varieties of slumlords — 26-year-old Samantha Hartsoe experienced a whole new freaky tenant story when she found an entire apartment accessible through a hole hidden behind her bathroom mirror. Hartsoe documented her finding and exploring the mirror unit in a four-part video series on TikTok that went viral today. But we still had questions even after the finale dropped this morning, so we tracked down Hartsoe, who shares her three-bedroom (plus the mystery extra space) apartment on Roosevelt Island with two roommates. The story is not so simple as an unpatched hole inadvertently giving access to a vacant unit next door; as Hartsoe tells us, even her building’s management isn’t quite sure what is going on.

This past weekend, when she came back from a hiking trip, she noticed that her bathroom was really cold. “It was weird, because I don’t have a vent that I know of in there that blows cold air.” Eventually she noticed that the draft was coming from the mirror over the sink. “I realized that it’s not connected to the wall, which seems a little strange. Sometimes mirrors are only, like, hanging … but the cold air was a little bit suspect.” When she lifted the mirror off its hanger she discovered a hole in the wall — it looks like a niche that once held a medicine cabinet, but with no back — that led to another room. And as any scary-movie character would (while we yell at the screen telling them not to do it), she decided to go in and explore the space on March 1, even as her roommate John tried to convince her not to.

Then she put on a face mask, strapped a flashlight onto her head with a hairband, grabbed a hammer (another horror-movie touch, just in case), and clambered through. Once she dropped into the room on the other side, she realized that it was likely too high off the ground for her to climb back. “I have to find my way out of here,” she remembers thinking. “I have to go back through that hole, which is pretty much impossible, or I have to find the exit of this place, which means I have to, at this point, explore it all.”

What she had entered was a full three-bedroom apartment with its windows open — that was the source of the cold draft — containing some “signs of life,” as she said in the video: a bunch of trash bags, an empty water bottle. “I was kind of expecting there to be somebody, especially with the water bottle being there,” she said. “And that definitely put me on edge.” But walking through, she realized the place was stripped and uninhabitable. “I’m not sure if it was being renovated or if it is empty. It’s really old, and nobody’s been in there a while. The shower-bathroom area is all piping — there’s no actual bathtub or toilet. The floor, and what I think would be the kitchen, was ripped up.” She did find a different way back into her own place, one that suggests that, unlike what some TikTok users assumed, this was not simply the apartment next door to hers: Exiting that apartment through the main door led her to a hallway elsewhere within her apartment complex, and she had to make her way through her building to get back to her own apartment. Despite the creepiness of the whole experience, the inspection tour did her some good: “I felt better sleeping there that night than I should have any other night.” She says she’s still avoiding her own bathroom as much as possible, though.

*snip*

[soothsayer]

1. Should have kept quiet and just expanded her living space

Kidding of course. That is so strange.

[underpants]

4. The owner/landlord didn't know about it?

Strange.

[soothsayer]

8. Isn't that bizarre? Can't wait to hear the rest of the story

[Rorey]

2. Wow

I know someone very well who built a secret room into his house. It was actually a grow room, complete with electric and plumbing, back before pot was legal here. Quite amazing, actually. The access was behind a full length mirror in their walk-in closet. Then he went through a divorce, and his wife threatened to tell, so in one night he tore down the entire thing and transported all of the plants and equipment to a friend's house. He used my van to do it. When he returned the van to me the next day, I practically got high just getting into it. It was super clean, and also had a whole lot of air fresheners in it, but that smell is strong and lingering.

Ah, the good old days.

He never went back to that life and is very successful in a legitimate profession today.

[underpants]

6. Funny.

We moved into a rental when we first found out we were pregnant. We’d been apartment critters.
The AC unit ran constantly and was replaced but before it was *knock knock* DEA came by. Massive power bill, previously empty house. My wife was on “bed rest” so she was home. The officer looked around enough to see it was a grow house and left.

[Rorey]

11. Back then they didn't use excessive power usage to figure that out

Now it's legal here, but there are still illegal grows. If it was me, I'd definitely use solar.

[Lochloosa]

14. LED lighting has changed that. Low consumption

[Rorey]

15. True

It's made a big difference in my consumption.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

3. Previous tenant was probably Horse Badorties.

A classic.

[underpants]

7. Gary Busey was in a TV movie about a guy who hid in someone's attic

He was on the run for something. They’d leave for the day and he’d come down to get some food. They kept finding things just a little out of place.

[madaboutharry]

5. You can see all 4 "installments" on her twitter feed at the link.

There is an entire apartment behind the mirror.

[MontanaMama]

9. That was fun to watch!

She’s a brave one. She could’ve encountered just about anything once she crawled through that hole. 😱

[Danmel]

10. Anyone remember Bad Ronald?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Ronald

[Rorey]

12. I don't think I saw that

I remember another movie, possibly made-for-tv, about a guy who lived in the crawlspace of an elderly couple's home.

Crawlspace 1972

[underpants]

13. Yep. Watched it on TV

I mentioned a Gary Busey TV movie above - he hid in someone’s attic.

I didn’t remember the name of Bad Ronald. Spooky. Thanks.