Basement dweller cliché needs to be buried

Mattan Lustgarten lives in his aunt’s basement and he loves it.

“I am fortunate to have such generous family,” says the 26-year-old surgical resident at the University of Toronto. “As my aunt says, it’s a mutually beneficial relationship. In the rare moments when we have time, it’s nice to have a coffee together, bounce ideas off one another, or talk family matters.”

Lustgarten doesn’t pay rent. Instead he helps out around the house with groceries, cooking and home improvement. “This summer I spent several weeks renovating a section of the basement into a kitchenette,” he says.

Living in his aunt’s Seaton Village basement has not only allowed him to become closer to his cousins who live upstairs; it’s also enabled him to start paying off his student debt. What’s wrong with this picture? Nothing, of course, except that it contradicts nearly every stereotype still pervasive in our culture about the kind of person who resides in a basement apartment, particularly one belonging to a family member.

“Basement dweller” is synonymous with many stereotypes, few of them positive: arrested development, unkemptness, internet trolling. Our media seems to pump out clichés about the nameless “guy in the basement” — or, more common these days — the nameless “millennial in the basement” on a near-daily basis.

“There’s this stereotype of lazy, unhealthy people that are basement dwellers who only come into the light when they have to,” says Ally Buso, a student at Humber College who rents a basement apartment for $1,200 a month (utilities included) in Parkdale.