Students make viral TikTok video about apartment’s flaws 

When roommates Emma Fidler and Devon Sieving moved into their apartment near USC in August, they found a unit with quirks and poor living conditions — a fridge that knocks into their oven when opened, a kitchen that only fits one person at a time and a bedroom completely devoid of natural light.

Fidler, a senior majoring in health and human sciences, and Sieving, a senior majoring in human biology, have laughed about their apartment’s quirks since, and after a few months, decided to film a TikTok documenting the apartment’s conditions “as a joke.”

At first, the video didn’t gain much traction — Sieving said it only accummulated six views when she went to bed that night, most of them from her and Fidler. But when Sieving woke up the next morning, the video had started circulating more widely.

“I looked on TikTok, just randomly. I was like, ‘Oh, I just want to watch the video again,’ and I think it had around 25,000 views,” Fidler said. “I jokingly texted Devon, and I was like, ‘Devon, we’re famous.’”

Now, with more than 12 million views and one million likes, the girls have an audience following every update about their apartment. 

“We obviously could have never expected it to get to this point that it is now,” Fiddler said.

Fidler and Sieving had to find new housing after a prior housing fallout last summer, and found the apartment they live in in June and signed immediately. While they had seen photos of a similar unit before moving in, they had not seen the exact apartment they eventually moved into.

The roommates spoke about the difficulty of finding apartments in the USC area, as most apartments are rented out quickly or are too expensive. According to RENTcafé, a housing rental website, the average rental cost in University Park is $4,263, the second most expensive in L.A. Historic South Central, also near USC, has the third highest rent at $4,212.

Fidler and Sieving said they don’t know if their landlord’s company has seen the viral video, but they asked for an apartment remodeling after learning their bathroom had mold a few days after their first video — and they stayed in a hotel with all expenses paid, which is all documented on Fidler’s TikTok account.

Through the experience, the roommates said they learned to use their voices to advocate for themselves.  

“What we’ve realized throughout this is to always speak up,” Fidler said. “They’re remodeling our bathroom and making it a nicer place for us to live for the next three months or ’till the end of our lease.”

The roommates continued making TikToks for their audience with updates on the apartment saga, reading comments such as “is it worth it besties?” and “this is why I live in Pittsburgh” by Duolingo, a popular language-learning app that trended on TikTok. Fidler and Sieving said they will continue making videos on their terms.

“As long as it’s fun for us and as long as people want to see,” Sieving said. “Hopefully when it’s remodeled, there will be a lot less content able to be made.” 

Fidler said that it has been fun reading the comments, support and kindness from viewers throughout the journey. Specifically, Sieving said she remembers one user’s comment on a video about the roommates not having heat for part of December. 

“We said that we got into a heated argument with our landlord. A viewer said ‘at least something got heated,’” Sieving said. “I thought that was hysterical.”

Fidler and Sieving look forward to making more TikToks and have been happy to bring joy to peoples’ days by showing their apartment’s quirks. Hopefully, they said, after their apartment’s renovation — their TikToks can be about something else.

Fiddler and Sieving’s landlord declined to provide comment to the Daily Trojan.