The best room in the four-dude Bloomingdale group house is also the most isolated — up on the third floor, with pine-tree wall art, big windows and its own bathroom and shower. It belongs to Dutch Seitz. But if our current national nightmare infiltrates the house, the 26-year-old is prepared to move a few of his possessions to a small spare room with an air mattress, allowing his coveted third-floor spot to become the infirmary.
That’s the deal he and his housemates made as Washington, along with much of the nation, girds itself for the coronavirus: If one of them gets covid-19, the illness caused by the virus, Seitz’s room is where the sick will go: sealed into the navy-and-white room without hesitation, with only a mounted stag for company. It’s like “The Cask of Amontillado,” but with Netflix.
“It’s a necessary sacrifice for the greater good,” says Seitz. Late last week, even though his housemates were in good health, he packed a bag of about 10 days’ worth of clothing to stash in the spare room so he could be ready to move there at a moment’s notice.
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