What It's Like to Have Axl Rose as a Tenant

If Axl Rose showed up to rent an apartment from you, what would you do? I mean, it’s one thing to get a bad vibe based on someone’s general demeanor and references, but what if their references were the international media and their general demeanor was a decades-long warpath of utter destruction? Well, that’s the decision that faced one man when Axl Rose applied to rent his Tribeca apartment. It’s a cute story, actually.

Via Vulture:

Axl came by to see the apartment twice. Once my wife was there, and she reported that he played enthusiastically with our dog and snorted at people who like spaces “bathed in light,” as the Realtors say. He loved the place.

Of course, I was worried. Axl, after all, had a reputation for wrecking places. There is, for instance, this headline from 2008: “Guns N’ Roses’ Axl Rose one of world’s worst hotel guests.” But he was said to have reformed as he aged. By the time he inspected my apartment, he was almost 50 years old and getting the belly to prove it.

As Axl seemed enthusiastic and relatively mellowed in his middle age—and was willing to pay the hefty rent on a 5,300-square-foot apartment in Tribeca—he signed a lease.

And turned out to be a model tenant.

My family and I followed Axl’s travels via Google alerts — he was touring in Abu Dhabi and playing a birthday party in Russia. We were repeatedly told by his very nice assistants, a mother and son team, that he was definitely planning a move to New York, which we were informed he’d fallen in love with. (He might even want to buy our place.) This attachment was good news, since as the one-year mark approached, it was time to renew his lease. He still hadn’t set foot in the apartment. We learned that he had been to New York, though, renting a roomy suite at a fancy hotel with a balcony and, well, lots of light. Still, he renewed — this time at an increased rent.

As far as I can tell, Axl never set foot in my place after his initial viewings. I wondered if he remembered that he’d rented it. Maybe a superstar lives this way — renting apartments just in case, and then forgetting about them. Still, the rent checks kept coming, which is all I cared about.

Sounds awesome to me. Hey, Axl, if you’re looking for a partially finished basement in south Seattle, I’ve got an amazing spot for you. It’s only $6,000 per month, it has a small dark bathroom, and it comes with a broken piano and an assortment of dead bugs. Also sometimes kids come down there to poop when they’re too embarrassed to use the main floor bathroom. I’ll be in touch.