This Apartment Deserves Some Discussion

Normally, the genesis for the Wednesday WTF is not one short video clip of an apartment, but instead a whole house.

But these are not normal times, and I need to share what I saw this week so that we can all sit and marinate in the WTFery that has been perpetrated on this multi-family structure, and on its kitchen in particular.

“Viewed a flat today and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop thinking about the back door…” wrote James Wilkes on Twitter.

Now, if you just saw that, you might wonder what is so special about a back door of an apartment. So uh, let me show you.

Did you not catch that? Let me storyboard it for you.

Now, surely, if you’re like me, you think that this is some kind of quirky anomaly probably found in a flat that was created in what used to be a single family home, so it’s unique.

Only, someone else commented.

So is this a thing? Do more apartments have kitchens that have hidden access to a back door? Is this really that secure? I have so many questions.

For what it’s worth, I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to Google to see if hidden access to backdoors in kitchens is a design thing, and guys, you have to be careful about the search term “hidden backdoor.” Just trust me on this one.

I did find an interesting article about how to make secret doors and hiding spaces in your house, but it was written in 2015, way before the pandemic, and you know by now boredom has driven us all to try to find every single hiding space our fellow sequestered loved ones have (or at least, my children have made this a mission).

The commenters are divided, by the way, on whether this is a genius use of space or a bad idea that sucks away a huge amount of counter storage in an already small kitchen. What say you all?

And how would you explain this access in a real estate listing?