As a child growing up in Midtown Manhattan, I learned to speak apartment very early. When other parents might ask, “What do your friend’s parents do?” my parents asked, “Where do they live?”—not geographically but wanting to know if they lived in a brownstone, high-rise, railroad flat, classic six, studio, loft, efficiency, or a penthouse. With that information, they could fill in the blanks.

Once the basic category of domicile was established, we came to the subsets. Doorman? Fire escapes? Prewar? Tile or linoleum bathroom? Walk-up or elevator? What floor? Super on premises? Elevator man or push button? These may seem like random, slightly odd questions, but believe me, they provided an accurate cultural barometer.

It grieves me to see my friends (or, more accurately, their grandchildren) trying to find their first apartment. Reading apartment ads is like trying to understand a list of ingredients on the back of a can written in a language you don’t understand, or maybe like trying to find a mate on a dating site where everything is vague and unclear: “He likes long walks on the beach.” It is a recipe for heartbreak.

If reading ads for available apartments is mystifying, I can try to help by making this blanket statement: “What is written in the ads are all lies.” You need to be able to see behind the veil of false hopes. I have put together some translations that might help.

A Glossary of Basic Apartment Speak

Cozy: So small you will keep your clothes in a plastic box under the bed.

As is: A complete wreck. If you are lucky, the landlord will have removed the dead body.

Charming: A view of a scraggly tree, crooked floors, wobbly stairs.

Modern: Harvest-gold or avocado appliances from the sixties posing as retro chic.

Built-ins: Previous tenants added weird cabinets and shelves you can never remove.

Needs TLC: So did John Wayne Gacy.

Yoga facilities: A bleak shared public space where you can unroll your mat.

Handyman special: The entire staff of Home Depot could not help.

Original details: A flush toilet with a cord hanging from the ceiling and scary, sealed closet doors you can never open but hear noises through.

Rustic: You will need a hunting permit for the racoons and feral dogs scratching on your door.

Good bones: Think Katharine Hepburn in 1940, think Katharine Hepburn the year she died.

Turnkey: Way overpriced with the charm of a corporate office.

Airy: All the windows are broken.

Friendly leasing staff and amenities: A Mr. Coffee machine in the mostly empty lobby.

Hidden gem: So far from any stores or schools the police can’t find it on their map.

Recently renovated: The fiftieth layer of fresh paint smeared on so carelessly you will never be able to open a window or locate the electrical outlets.

Where to Start

The good ones are seldom advertised; they are passed down to friends or family members. If you are lucky, you will be alerted by word of mouth. Some desperate apartment seekers read the local obituary or bankruptcy notices in the newspaper to see if an apartment might become vacant. Others keep a hawk eye out for moving vans and U-Hauls.

Finding a good apartment often involves a good wad of cash given quietly to the right connection. No signed forms, no documentation, just an “understanding.” Some call this earnest money, but it is simply a sizable bribe.

Renting an apartment in a less “established” city is no less exhausting. You may be able to work your way around the bribery and connections, but you will have the trade-off of producing credit ratings, security deposits, endless lease signings, criminal and bankruptcy investigations, and pet documentation. Pet ownership may seem the least of your worries in finding an apartment, but don’t deceive yourself.

If an apartment is “pet friendly,” you may still pay a large move-in fee for your pet and then a significant monthly rate. You will need to provide vaccination records and other medical certification. Many apartments, especially ones with HOAs, demand your dog have a costly oral DNA swab.

The DNA swab is in case you do not pick up their poop when they are walked. The rental company will be able to match their abandoned poop to the DNA on file, and you will be heavily fined or kicked out of your place of residence. This will then be on a permanent record that will follow you when you try to rent another apartment.

Your New Apartment

If you are lucky enough to find a decent apartment in a safe neighborhood, don’t celebrate yet. If anything, now is the time to prepare for battle.

Here is a short list of problems you will find in your new apartment.

1. Neighbors

Unless you are blessed to have moved into a prewar beauty with six-foot-thick walls made from concrete and horsehair, you will hear your neighbors. Noise is the number-one complaint among apartment dwellers. The newer the building, the thinner the walls. You will hear them sneeze, have sex, change TV channels, and drag mysterious things across the floor at 2 A.M.

P.S.—If this creeps you out, remember they can hear you too.

2. The Landing

Your apartment is likely one among many that share a landing. It does not matter if it is a walk-up building or one with an elevator: You are not alone. Once you close your apartment door, the space inside is yours, but outside the front door, there’s a turf war.

If you are unlucky enough to share a landing with a “creative decorator,” you will find yourself in a muddle of dollar-store Santas, dead holiday door wreaths, saggy six-foot-tall Mickey Mouse inflatables, and posters or flags for whatever political cause is popular, not to mention incense and pungent candles whose scent spreads like kudzu vines. Landings are also the repositories of bicycles, skis, hockey sticks, and anything with an outdoorsy vibe.

Your apartment’s front door will soon be the site of your neighbors misplaced Amazon deliveries, yesterday’s DoorDash suppers, discarded charity donations, erroneous dry cleaner drop-offs, chalk scrawls from their kids, and forgotten dog-poop bags.

3. Parking

Parking might sound more like a house issue, but apartments are a site of intense car wars. If you have a house, you have a driveway or some sort of permanent car space, but imagine you live with three hundred other people and there are no assigned spaces: parking is first come, first served. Even if your space is assigned and your apartment number is clearly painted on your space, it will be ignored.

In some swanky apartment high-rises there is a garage in the basement, which is convenient, but the rate for monthly parking is like Ivy League college tuition that for no apparent reason increases every few months. Because the turnover rate for people hired to park cars is astronomical, the fact that your Maserati has new scrapes or dents when you call down for it is met with a shoulder shrug. “Raoul doesn’t work here anymore.”

4. The Nail Hole

If you rent, you can’t bang a nail into the wall and hang a picture. You can’t mount your TV on the wall. You can’t add wall units, security systems, shelves, chandeliers, or change the fixtures in the bathroom.

Of course, you cando all of these, but if you ever move away, be prepared to spend tens of thousands to remedy the damage.

You can’t affix anything useful or permanent to a balcony or porch (like a picnic umbrella or TV antenna). Alas, that sad showerhead that drips like an old widow’s tears is yours forever. Don’t torture yourself by looking at the big plate-size chrome ones on Amazon.

If you do have the audacity to want to move, the apartment will be inspected and everything in your utility-grade digs will suddenly become a Sotheby-grade valuable. The thin beige carpeting, the frayed bug screens on the windows, the cracked plastic toilet paper holder, and the pebbled popcorn ceiling paint are now architectural gems. Diana Vreeland chose similar ones for the Met.

You Can’t Move

So the lesson to be learned is: you might as well learn to like your apartment because you can’t leave. Another common misconception about apartment living is that whatever bothers you is not a big deal because it is temporary. It is temporary in some sense, but if you decide you don’t like living there, you cannot move.

Here is the truth: you can move when the lease is up and after you have paid all your bills. You can move after the apartment has been inspected for the damage that you, your dog, your parakeet, or your kid has caused, but that is the tip of the iceberg. Getting a contentious divorce from a billionaire is easier than breaking a standard lease.

In most states you can move mid-lease if your landlord is instantly able to rent the place to someone else, but this has never happened in the history of mankind. It is like getting your security deposit back. Maybe once, in Narnia.

According to legal websites, government documents, and my own lease, few things will get you out of a commitment mid-year. Even being dead is up for negotiation because now your apartment becomes your survivors’ problems.

Jane Stern has published forty-two books and has contributed pieces toThe New Yorker, GQ, The Atlantic*, and* Gourmet.* A permanent collection of her work is held at the Smithsonian Institute.*