And it’s not a nice, cosy closed-off balcony either. It’s windowless and faces noisy King Street in sought-after Newtown in Sydney’s inner-west.
“People look and point all the time. I don’t mind it. It’s cool. I shout at people I know all the time as well. There’s also a random guy that lives in our laundry,” Josh Chamberlin, 23, told the newspaper.
Mr Chamberlin had just arrived in town, didn’t have a job and without rental history, struggled to secure a place of his own. He eventually found the two bedroom house in Newtown which he rents with two other friends.
Mr Chamberlin initially chose to sleep in the living room, then tried sharing a room with one of his housemates before eventually settling on the balcony off one of the bedrooms.
“It’s expensive here, but it was supposed to be only for a little while. Then we started doing gigs in the courtyard and no one really cares that we rehearse in here all the time. We’ve got good neighbours. It’s hard to get good neighbours these days, even in Newtown,” he says.
The funny thing is, Mr Chamberlain doesn’t once complain about his digs. “I hated this for a long time, and I wanted to move, but I’ve sort of made it my space now,” he says.
I live in Newtown too. And yet I hate it when I have to share the elevator in my building.
Image: Sydney Morning Herald
