Something's really fishy about this story. On the one hand, the author is saying about how wealthy a neighborhood she lives in (TriBeCa.) On the other hand, she manages to write in a filthy unoccupied apartment in her building. How does this writer manage to use this apartment? Why isn't this apartment rented out? Is she saying that the apartment manager would rather let her write in this place than rent it out? With the housing market the way it is in Manhattan, there is no way the apartment manager would keep an unoccupied apartment open, especially in this trendy neighborhood, for the benefit of some writer to use. Not when the market value for that apartment is a minimum of $2000 a month!You've hit the nail on the head. I'll bet there is no good reason for this situation. Could be she lives in rathole on the sly and sublets her own place to somebody else and pockets the difference. Or uses the rathole as her "office" for free (having found working utilities and phone lines but no nosey owners) and pockets savings that way.