Mirror, mirror on the wall, who has the biggest apartment of all?
A woman realized that her three-bedroom apartment on Roosevelt Island was really a six-bedroom dwelling after discovering a deserted apartment lurking on the other side of her bathroom mirror.
Samantha Hartsoe — who documented the discovery in a series of TikTok videos on Thursday — said she decided to take a peek behind the mirror after realizing that cold air was blowing out from behind it.
“I’m in my New York City apartment and it’s cold. Obviously, it doesn’t matter how high the heat goes, I’m cold,” Hartsoe explained in her first video. “So I go in [the bathroom], and the air is coming from the mirror.”
The Alabama native took down the mirror and found a series of wires in the inner wall. Opposite the hole behind her mirror was another rectangular hole, which peered into another room.
The videos, which have racked up more than 9 million views as of Friday evening, show Hartsoe climbing through the hole with a flashlight strapped to her head with a headband, and stepping into the mysterious space, she told New York Magazine.
“I have to find my way out of here,” Hartsoe thought after climbing through the hole behind her mirror, according to the magazine. “I have to go back through that hole, which is pretty much impossible, or I have to find the exit of this place, which means I have to, at this point, explore it all.”
The 26-year-old’s friend, John, handed her a hammer for protection, which she gripped as she walked through the abandoned, three-room apartment to ominous music.
“John, there’s trash bags and stuff!” she whispered. Despite the few signs of life, including a water bottle, the apartment seemed uninhabitable: there was exposed piping, an uninstalled toilet, and damaged walls.
Hartsoe also discovered the source of the cold air — the windows of the apartment had been left wide open, she told New York Magazine.
Hartsoe walked out the apartment’s front door, which was curiously located at a different part of her apartment complex, and came back to reinstall the mirror.
“My landlord is getting a really fun phone call tomorrow!” she said.
Hartsoe told NBC News that she hasn’t contacted her landlord yet, but that she’s reached out to the building’s maintenance team to seal up the hole behind her mirror.
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