Friends: 10 Things That Make No Sense About Chandler & Joey’s Apartment

Friends is the epitome of the hangout-comedy genre. It is predominantly set either at Central Perk or at the mother hen, Monica’s apartment. Interestingly, the gang either started out as roommates or neighbors, and in the process, became each other’s friends and family. Speaking of neighbors, the boys across the hall, Chandler, and Joey would rarely host the gang at their place.

Maybe because apartment 4 (or was it 19 ?) was a hot mess of spackled walls, the immovable Rosita, a broken door, and most of all, illegally kept pet birds. No wonder Monica and Rachel tricked the boys into giving up their purple-walled sanctuary. Joey and Chandler lived in a chaotic apartment with a lot of nonsense surrounding it.

10 Rent Affordability

To this day, Friends gets a lot of flak for showing unemployed/ low-paid characters living in huge apartments. Just like Monica and Rachel’s massive apartment, Chandler and Joey’s pad was highly unrealistic too.

Unrealistic for the most part because as a struggling actor in New York City, Joey found himself constantly between jobs and/or working low-income jobs like a cologne sampler, a Christmas tree salesman, a museum tour guide, amongst many others. Assuming Chandler covered his expenses for many, many years, living in the huge apartment was still very well beyond their means, given its impressive location and square footage.

9 Joey Forgets His Own Phone Number

Chandler and Joey’s last night as roommates in apartment 19 also becomes an opportunity for the former to walk the latter through adulting. They cover topics like paying the rent, the phone bill, and the electricity bill.

As shocking as Joey’s ignorance about mundane tasks is, like for example, the due date of rent, the lad pretty much is unaware of their phone number. As soon as Chandler hands him out the phone bill, he shrieks and goes, “Oh my god!” Given that Joey has called his apartment from public telephones, take say, in season 4’s “The One Where Chandler Crosses The Line,” it’s odd how he doesn’t recognize his own phone number two seasons later.

8 The Toilet Moves

It also appears that Chandler and Joey’s toilet changes its position with the changing episodes. In season 5’s “The One Where Phoebe Hates PBS,” the open bathroom door reveals vacant space from the door to the ceramic bathtub. In the next episode, however, Joey falls asleep on the toilet which is positioned right next to the door.

For a little reference, he nearly catches Chandler and Monica standing in the middle of the living room at 3 ‘clock in the morning. They avoid getting caught at the ungodly hour by telling him it’s morning time, so he heads to the bathroom to get washed up.

7 Giving Names To Decor

When Rachel tries to move Joey’s Barcalounger from their living room to make space for the couch, she learns he has named their apartment decor. The reclining chair is Rosita and the television in front of it is Stevie. Rachel accidentally breaks the chair in half and watches Joey dramatically grieve over it.

It’s season 7 and Chandler has moved out to live with Monica, but seeing as he talks to Stevie, the TV, it’s safe to assume naming the chairs and electronics was the most unusual thing ever.

6 The Curious Case Of The Pet Duck

When Joey gets a pet chicken at the end of season 3, it drives a wedge between him and Chandler as none of them are ready for the huge responsibility yet. Chandler takes little Yasmine back to the store, learns what happens to birds when no one is willing to adopt them and comes back with a loud Pekin duck.

Chandler and Joey being able to keep two pets in an NYC apartment is a Friends sub-plot devoid of rhyme or reason. Seemingly the boys got away with causing a nuisance to their neighbors, Monica and Rachel, but even then a pecking duck is a farm animal, and illegal to keep in the city of New York.

5 Apartment Number Changes

Early on in the show, Joey and Chandler are shown to be living across the hall from Monica’s in apartment number 4. So essentially, the two neighbors lived in ground-floor apartments. The problem was, Monica and Rachel’s balcony had a fantastic view, and the gang didn’t seem to have a problem spying on the guy who lived right across the street from them in an apartment slightly below theirs.

To make up for this anomaly, the apartment number had to be changed from 4 to 19 in the 8th episode, “The One Where the Nana Dies Twice.” The production crew was slow in catching on to this major fact and had fans confused in the process.

4 Was Kicking Out Eddie Menuek So Easy?

When Chandler’s unhinged roommate, Eddie Menuek wouldn’t move out, he had his possessions moved from the apartment in his absence. Now, Eddie by no means was a regular guy – he dehydrated fruit, stole mannequins from Macy’s, replaced his pet fish with a goldfish cracker, and named it Chandler.

At the same time, kicking Eddie out wasn’t a piece of cake either. When Eddie saw his stuff at the bottom of the stairs, Chandler and Joey led him to believe he’d knocked at the wrong door. Nothing unbelievable about that, except Eddie must have hunted his apartment in the building and at some point spoken to the superintendent. He must also have signed documents before renting apartment 19 and deciphered how he was tricked out. Maybe Chandler should have dealt with the bad roommate situation civilly.

3 What Is In The Oven?

The kitchen area kept getting weirder and weirder throughout the series. In season 10, fans noticed a strange object locked up in Joey’s oven. After much speculation and debate, they reached the conclusion that the object in fact was a yellow M&M La-Z-Boy Dispenser.

A good question to ask would be, what was the figurine doing in the oven? Now, judging by Joey’s reputation, there’s a good chance he opened the oven to pop something in, forgot what it was he needed to do, and instead, left the M&M Dispenser inside. As simple as it may sound, Joey never really bothered to take it out.

2 Chandler’s Entrance Was Blocked Before

Early on in season 1, a small TV stood right outside chandler’s doorway, blocking the entrance to his room. Turns out, Chandler faced trouble getting in and out of his room before the entertainment unit was put up in the living room.

In season 3’s “The One With Frank Jr.,” Joey gets worked up about constructing an entertainment unit that ends up bigger than its original proposed dimensions, therefore blocking a little of his and Chandler’s door. Naturally, the latter miffed, because his side of the unit ends up ripping his multiple suits. Chandler could have saved himself trouble if only he had remembered to turn and slide the second time around.

1 Two Microwaves, A Little Much

After the boys were robbed in season 4, Chandler bought new stuff for their apartment to uncover the guilt of going behind Joey’s back and kissing his girlfriend. He stuffed their pad with kitchen gadgets, the latest electronics, and weirdly, two microwaves. Fans have multiple opinions on Chandler buying two microwaves saying two sets would have come in handy while heating Joey’s special or that they didn’t use the stove that often.

Everybody knows Joey loved food and didn’t share it, but even then, two microwaves seem a little too much considering the guys rarely ate at their place.

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