New York Apartment Listing Offering $100 Discount If You Don't Cook Mocked

While looking for a new place to live, Kaisa Purvis was stunned when she stumbled on a listing that offered a cheaper rent for roommates who wouldn't cook in the kitchen.

"I was thinking, are they serious?" Purvis, 28, told Newsweek. Currently living in Danbury, Connecticut, she was looking on the site Roomies.com for somewhere in New York City when she saw the listing.

The description read: "The rent with cooking is $1,000. The rent with no cooking is $900. No cooking does not mean you cannot use the kitchen. You can use the kitchen under the following restrictions."

Restrictions included not cooking using the stove, oven or microwave oven to make food. The listing poster did explain, however: "You can fix a meal or a drink in the kitchen. You can use the microwave oven to warm or defreeze food. You can use the stove to get warm or hot water."

Roomies.com is a peer-to-peer platform that allows people to find a spare room or search for roommates. Individuals create their own account and either upload the space they have to offer or start searching for a suitable home share.

Debate has soared this year as people have been told to "get a roommate" to offset the rising cost of living. However, finding somewhere to live, and later co-habiting with others, isn't always easy.

The home in the listing is a three-bedroom and two-bathroom space in Manhattan offered unfurnished but with bills included in the rent.

Shocked by the listing's unusual clause, Purvis sent the listing image to her friend Ryan. He shared it on Reddit's r/mildlyinfuriating forum, where it has had over 10,000 upvotes and hundreds of reactions in the comments.

"I don't know what state this is in, but I don't even think this is legal, man," wrote one commenter, to which another joked: "Pretty sure it's the state of delusion."

Another Reddit user wrote: "As a person who never cooks, sounds fine to me except the landlord sounds insane so I would pass on that listing anyway."

"That's the weirdest thing I've ever seen," read another reply, while another user posted: "I would love to have an opportunity to chat with the person who wrote this. Fascinating."

While backlash raged online, the resident who ran the Roomies ad told Newsweek: "Two persons cannot cook at the same time in my kitchen. If I am not allowed to provide two different rents about my room, the rent of my room will be $1,000. But I want to lower the rent to a roommate who does not cook.

"If my roommate does not cook, I can cook anytime, which is very convenient to me. If my roommate cooks, I may have to postpone my cooking because of her cooking. And in the worst case in which my roommate cooks heavily (cooking for two or three hours), I will have to eat out," they added.

For this convenience, the resident explained they had decided to lower the rent by $100 for a roommate who did not cook. They also reiterated that the microwave would still be available to any roommate.