Last month, Cameron Knowlton, a Compass Real Estate agent that goes by @NewYorkCityRealtor on TikTok, shared a clip of the apartment, located in the West Village, at the request of his followers. 

“People ask me: ‘What is the worst apartment you’ve ever seen?’” Knowlton began the clip. “I’m gonna show you. And before you ask, yes, this is a real apartment. This is what $1,600 gets you in the most desired neighbourhood in New York City.”

In the TikTok, Knowlton opens the door to reveal an extremely small space with dark wood floors, white walls and one window.

After walking the small length of the apartment, which costs $1,650 per month, he pans back to show the “kitchen” area, which includes a mini fridge and a sink - and nothing else.

“Zero oven, one mini fridge, no stove, and only one singular closet,” he narrates the video, before encouraging his followers to like the video if they wish to find out where the bathroom is, which he revealed in a follow-up video is shared by the “entire complex”.

“We have the video for the bathroom, and it is just as bad as you could possibly imagine,” he prefaces the second video, before showing a miniscule room with a toilet inside but without a sink.

To shower, residents have to make their way across the hallway to a different room that is also shared by the building, where they also have access to “shared soap”.

The initial video, which has since been viewed more than 21.7m times, has been met with thousands of comments, with reactions ranging from disbelief to disgust.

“How this is even allowed is beyond me,” one person commented.

Another said: “That’s not an apartment, that’s a storage unit.” 

“Harry Potter had a nicer place to stay,” someone else joked.

Others couldn’t get past the apartment’s bathroom, with one person responding: “This has got to be a joke.”

“New York isn’t worth it if you have to live like that and pay that much,” another viewer added.

According to Tatum Kelly of Compass Realty, who spoke to the New York Post regarding the apartment, the landlord has remained set on the price despite the pandemic - as the building was “usually at full occupancy pre-Covid”.