I wore a cheap t-shirt and a dirty fleece from the Salvation Army which I had smeared with cigarette ash and crumbs from a bag of Doritos. I hadn't shaved in a week.
Checking in
vigilant
Gus Lubin / Business Insider
A resident walks up the stairs.
Behind the first crimson door is a second crimson door, with paper signs stating the rules of the hotel: NO DOUBLES, NO COUPLES, MEN ONLY, etc. Another sign warns of 24-hour closed circuit surveillance. Behind this door is a narrow two-floor stairway and a warm smell of body odor.
On the second floor, there's a big room with a bunch of covered cubicles in the middle.
I followed a sign to the end of a hall, where behind a metal grate I saw a shirtless man with a big belly, white chest hair, and a collar of white shoulder hair.
"Is it $40 for a room?" I asked.
"It's 120 for the week," the manager said.
"I just need a room for the night."
The manager took my ID and $40 for the night plus a $5 key deposit. He didn't ask what I was doing there. Either my disguise had fooled him or this just wasn't the type of place where you ask questions.
As he took my money, he warned me I was in for a long night.
bug spray vigilant
Gus Lubin / Business Insider
"BUGS" spray.
"You know there's no ceiling? You'll hear people next to you. You won't be able to sleep."
He told me where to find the bathroom and the shower. I could smoke in the room, but I had better use the ashtray. There was a deli downstairs and I could come and go as I pleased, but I should keep the door to my room locked.
Finally he mentioned the bedbugs. He came out of the door with a big spray bottle with "BUGS" written on the side in marker. "Spray it if you see a bug. You can spray it on yourself, your clothes, your bed." He sprayed it on his hands to demonstrate.
Room 108 is an 8x8x4-foot box topped by a grid of wooden slats.
The bed is a foam mattress wrapped in plastic on a wooden ledge, covered by an old but washed floral sheet. A wooden plank serves as a shelf. There is a light that makes a loud hum and an outlet on the wall.
The smell wasn't too bad and there was no immediate evidence of bugs.
vigilant
Gus Lubin / Business Insider
When I went upstairs and stopped to take a picture out an open window, I heard the owner shouting my name. I looked down and saw that his office had a window overlooking the stairs. He said: "The shower is right there and otherwise there's no reason to be prowling around upstairs. People come here to sleep, and you've got a nice room down there and no reason to go upstairs unless you're looking to burglar something."
The people who live there
The Vigilant is a single-room occupancy that is listed by city organizations as a resource for homeless people. Some looked like they had jobs, others looked liked they did not have much.
A black man carried a bike to the third floor. A Hispanic man in a button-down shirt made conversation with the manager. One of the residents helped the manager check email and afterward said "All right, Michael, have a good night. Thanks for everything."
vigilant floor plan
Gus Lubin / Business Insider
The second floor floor plan.
An old black man in a towel walked barefoot upstairs to the shower. Unseen others made noises, caughing, listening to the radio, and moving in their rooms.
A large black man in a cracking leather jacket walked down the stairs one booming step at a time. I followed him to the deli next door where he stood by the counter until all the other customers had gone.
"Coffee," the man muttered.
"What?" the deli worker asked.
"Coffee."
The deli worker looked uncomfortable for a moment and then poured the man a coffee and asked "milk or sugar?"
"Marlboro," the man muttered.
vigilant
Gus Lubin / Business Insider
The hallway.
At this point another deli worker came over and said, "Hey, is he going to pay for that?"
As the man walked past me on the way back into the Vigilant, I asked how long he had lived here. "Three, four years," he said with half a smile plastered on his face.
I went back to the deli later and asked about him.
"He's messed up in the head. He lives upstairs," the deli worker said. "The Vigilant is a bad place. Full of people with mental problems. The city pays for them to live there on the fourth floor. The rest pay rent."
"It's a bad place. Bed bugs, small rooms, like that bathroom, but smaller. They used to come in with their bedbugs and cause lots of problems for us. You'd see the bedbugs on them." The deli worker gestured to his chest and shoulders. Used to? "Yeah I think they've fixed it or something. It's a bad place. I would never stay there. Even if I were homeless I wouldn't live there. It's like paying for jail."
Going to sleep
The idea was to sleep sitting crosslegged. Having heard that the bug spray didn't work, I had brought a travel container of Purell and figured what the heck. I squeezed the hand sanitizer in a circle around me as if in a strange black magic incantation.
But sleeping sitting up is uncomfortable, plus I figured the point of the story was to lie down and fall asleep in the bed, so I lay down.
bedbug vigilant
BI
The bug that bit my neck.
I woke to a prick on my neck. I slapped and checked my hand and found a squished bedbug.
I got up and took off my fleece and felt my neck and arms and hips for bugs. It was 3:30 and I wasn't going back to sleep.
Locking the door behind me I walked down the hall to the office. The manager was sleeping in his chair. He stirred at the sound of my keys. I would have taken a picture but I was afraid his eyes would open and he would be furious.
I took a taxi back to Brooklyn and removed my contaminated clothes before entering my apartment.
There are few options for people who have nothing in New York. For those who can afford it, Vigilant Hotel is a viable option. You get a bed, a semi-private room and a not-unfriendly community. But if you can't handle the bedbugs, then you may be better off on the street.
