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It may not be a glitzy suite at the five-star Chatwal Hotel, but Robert Mallia has called Room 307 home for the past 14 months.
An architectural director for Chatwal's owner, the Dream Hotel Group, he traded in his Long Island City apartment for the hotel digs when the company needed someone to babysit the Midtown property after it closed for the pandemic.
What was supposed to be a two-week stint turned into more than a year of living at the hotel alone. No guests, no maids, no chef—just Mallia and a rotation of security guards keeping watch over the 76-room inn.
"When weeks became months, I got used to my room," he said, "like in Shawshank Redemption. I'm content in my cell now."
All of the hotel's 59-member staff is now gone, so he eats mostly takeout and cleans his own room.
"It's nothing too glamorous, I'm afraid," he said.
He wakes up at 5:30 every morning and does mundane tasks such as sorting through the mail and strolling around the property, checking for leaks, while the security guards make sure there have been no break-ins or squatters.
Mallia's least glamorous chore, however, happens once a week and takes about an hour and a half. Beginning on the top floor and working his way down, he goes into each room and flushes the toilet. Twice a month he turns on all the showers and sink faucets and lets them run for about 10 minutes.
"Wear and tear actually keeps the building maintained better than abandoning it," he said.
A few times a week, he has company. The building's chief engineer stops by to make sure the hotel is complying with building and fire codes and that the sprinklers and...