Searching for a Studio

I went to look at a rental studio in an artists' collective today. They had a space available that was almost 400 sq. ft., for $400 a month. I was quite tempted, until I saw the space itself. It was a very large corner of an open room, with a common hallway running through the space. No personal security. Huge minus when I want to keep my studio camera and my lighting gear in the studio. Another minus- they got their panties in a bunch when I started talking about doing wet-plate collodion - as soon as I mentioned the word ether, they got huffy about how it would be knocking people out. As if. Only if I left the bottle open and out in public, and people came by to take hits off the bottle straight up their nose.