[New York Diary] The Challenging Journey to Moving into a U.S. Rental Apartment

I was assigned as a New York correspondent and arrived in the U.S. two weeks ago. Although I wasn’t without a 'romance' for a single house, since it was my first time living abroad and a short-term two-year assignment, I decided to find a familiar apartment (American condo). On the day I arrived, I met with a real estate agent I had contacted in advance from Korea, toured several places, and immediately decided to move into one. It was a 20-year-old condo with hundreds of units. I had prepared to stay in a hotel for about two weeks, but finding a home on the day of arrival was such a relief. Although moving in was possible only a few days later due to condo internal procedures, the landlord was a kindly Korean man old enough to be my father, and all the built-in appliances were brand new, so I thought everything would go smoothly. It was a misconception.

The problem was the home inspection procedure that the landlord must go through before renting out the property. In New Jersey, where I found the house, the landlord must obtain a so-called 'Certificate of Continued Occupancy (CCO)' from the local municipality when selling or renting out a home. A government official comes to inspect whether the buyer or tenant can live safely, and the CCO is issued only if safety standards are met. The landlord and agent I met on the first day said, "It will definitely pass," and told me to leave the house for just one hour the next day when the official would come. They also warned me not to unpack and to hide the large suitcase and two immigration bags I brought from Korea in the storage room, since tenants are not supposed to move in before the CCO is issued.

However, the home inspection process was more challenging than expected. After three rejections over three full days, I finally succeeded on the fourth attempt. According to what I heard from the agent, the first day’s issue was the fire alarm. To prepare for the risk of the alarm not working properly, a dual system with both batteries and wired connections is required, but the wires were not connected. On the second day, the front door was rejected because it did not close easily. In a condo with hundreds of units, if the front door does not close automatically, fire can easily spread outside in case of a fire. The door had to close without being pushed by hand to pass. On the third day, I was rejected again, but I couldn’t clearly hear the reason. By then, I wondered if I would ever be able to move in. If I recall correctly, the issue was the location of the fire extinguisher. There is a regulation that a fire extinguisher must be placed near the kitchen, which is a high fire risk area. Looking up New Jersey state regulations now, it specifies that a fire extinguisher must be within ten steps of the kitchen.

During the days I was rejected in the safety inspection, I had to endure an inconvenient lifestyle. Every morning I packed the unpacked items back into the immigration bags, and every evening I unpacked them again after coming home. As a Korean who is particularly impatient and always says 'ppalli-ppalli' (hurry-hurry), I started to get angry not only at the landlord but also at the government official. I wondered if they were deliberately pointing out one issue at a time to make me suffer. Now that I have finally 'moved in' to an American rental home after three rejections, I think that official was just doing their job. They thoroughly inspect rental properties for the safety of tenants and neighbors and refuse to compromise on safety standards. This level of inconvenience is worth enduring.

I have lived as both a tenant and a homeowner in Korea, but I have never heard of a safety inspection like this. It was the same when I lived in so-called 'sseokdari' apartments, which are decades old and slated for reconstruction. Of course, it may be difficult to compare with New York, where there are many buildings nearly 100 years old (New York also has a procedure similar to the CCO). Another difference is that most rentals in the U.S. are corporate-owned. What is clear is that experiencing the U.S. administration’s obsession with safety indirectly makes me feel both envy and bitterness. The series of fires in old apartments and the 'sunsal apartment' controversy that have continued since the end of last year might not have happened if thorough safety inspections had been conducted beforehand.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.