Honestly like trying to read and think in an unventilated tollbooth on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. (Which I would also try to do, if it were necessary.)
It's odd, though not unlikely, that these rooms are the antinomy of the present place (industrialization, etc.), while the dank, lightless rooms in the last place were a corresponding antinomy (contemplation, etc.). When renting apartments on a strict budget, once things are no longer neutral, they become characteristic of the place, occasionally too much so.