Apartment Nightmares in New York

Law & Order: Mouse Unit

“Don’t buy those D-Con [mouse] traps that look like roach motels! They work really well, so you don’t have to see the mouse when you kill it. However, because there is only a small little plastic piece to put the bait on, you wind up with a pool of mouse blood under the trap, and it looks like a friggin’ crime scene!”

-Sarah

Greek Rule

“I once lived in an apartment that was owned by this older Greek Couple who barely spoke English…

The apartment was old, but structurally beautiful, and we were happy there until we began to encounter the “charm,” or problems. Thick black mold had been painted over the bathroom walls and ceiling, and grew through the paint almost immediately after the first shower. We suspected it was in the walls of the bedrooms as well – there was always a moist, moldy smell.

Soon the rats came, and cockroaches, too. I could hear the vermin running in the walls at night. Added to those horrors was the worst detail of all: The building had not been re-wired in over seventy-five years, which meant that we could not plug in a toaster, a TV, and a fan, or anything else all at once; and I don’t mean in the same room, I mean throughout the whole apt… a two bedroom. No three things could be plugged in at once. We were not allowed to have an air-conditioner in the middle of summer, and were warned that we would burn the building down if we did."

-Andree

In The Heights (not the Broadway musical)

“I had a two year lease in a place in Washington Heights, which was crazy with the upstairs neighbors blaring salsa music until 3 a.m. and dancing so hard they knocked a mirror off the wall, shattering it everywhere and giving me bad luck. Then, I was mugged on the doorstep, so I had to leave, but couldn’t due to the lease.”

-Jeremy

Living In The Interzone

“Last year, I was living in this Bukowski-esque crackhouse of an SRO on 51st between 8th and 9th.  It featured: a sink that, if you fell on it while trying to adjust the bed sheet (drapes), would rip out of the wall which you would then have to prop up with a garbage can and a wet floor sign; one bed that would get infested with bedbugs after a week despite the plastic covering on the box spring; one window facing a parking lot lanced with barbed wire; and a community bathroom whose showerhead was installed on the ceiling. Oh. The room itself was only big enough to fit two twin beds and a TV. Rent? $180.00 a week. Cash.”

-Jake

Check The Guides:

Tips From The Pro

Michelle Dobrawsky has been a practicing litigator defending tenant’s rights for years here in New York. She offered some general tips for an prospective tenant, just in case anything ever turned ugly:

1 – Keep copies of everything.  More people lose track of their leases, receipts, etc.  This is simple and obvious but keep a folder with things like your lease, copies of checks, money order receipts, photos, etc.

2 – Take photos when you move in.  Take photos if there is damage while you live there to document the extent of it.  Either polaroids (write the date on them) or digital (print them don’t let them sit in your camera)

3 – Don’t pay cash.  Use a check, bank check or money order.

4 – If you sense problems, start documenting.  Phone calls for repairs, letters, etc.

5 – Start nice – it can often work – before escalating a dispute with the super, landlord or roommates.

6 – Get a written agreement if you are subletting or getting a roommate. Everyone is always nice at the beginning!  It keeps things businesslike and clear.

7 – Treat your apartment well and be nice to the neighbors. 

Tales From Jersey

“Ah, Jersey City Roommate. She was in her late thirties; alcoholic with three mini-poodles – one with three legs, another blind in one eye, and one that must have had brain damage because it peed everywhere and growled at the air. She also had a pet rat named Rizzo that had run of the apartment, and an empire of cockroaches that she lovingly called her “buggys.” My first night there, she came home drunk out of her mind. Screaming at the downstairs neighbors over the dog droppings in the hallway that she refused to clean up, and certainly belonged to her 3 miniature poodles. After an hour, she passed out in her bedroom. About a half-hour later, there was a knock on the door: it was the police. And she was in an alcoholic coma and was not waking up. I was afraid they were going to knock down the door, so I open it. Two policemen then threatened to arrest me for noise disturbance as I tried to explain that it wasn’t me… that was the first night. I have a lot more stories as I lived there for over a year. Hey, it was cheap.”

-Paige

You're Nobody Until A Crook Loves... Himself

“Last year, my friends (who happen to live in my building) had their apartment broken into, and the perpetrator – instead of stealing any of their possessions – proceeded to used their laptop to look at porn and get his self-love on; leaving the evidence up the screen and also, on the floor. They obviously had to change their locks.”

-Aubree

The Man Out Of Time

“I moved to Astoria in 1998 of October. Within a few weeks of working in Midtown, my apartment was burglarized. I was out late and came home to discover numerous boxes piled up next to my front door (to slow my entrance). I was such a slob that I wasn’t sure if somehow that wasn’t my fault. And I walked around the corner to see everything on the floor. Then it hit me. I ran into my bedroom but the window was open, the frame broken and no sign of the burglar. He (or they) had signed my wall, ‘the Latin Kings.’

Even before the robbery I was in a kind of lonely, depressed state. It had been a couple of years, but I was regretting breaking up with a recent girlfriend and was feeling kind of pathetic. I didn’t have a regular job. I felt directionless. In the mess, on my floor were my photos. By chance a photo of my ex-girlfriend had come up on top, and as the cops wandered my apartment they tried to cheer me up.

‘Hey is that your girlfriend? She’s cute.‘

Obviously this did not cheer me up. A week or so later I get a call from a detective.

’The strange thing about this case is most of the places they have hit were girl’s apartments.‘

Did he just call me a girl?

’Maybe you have a girlfriend who is over a lot, so they assumed a girl lived there.‘

’No, I don’t have a girlfriend.‘

Ouch.

’Well, we also suspect that the culprits know the victims are not home because they monitor their work place. Do you work in Astoria?‘

’No. I don’t have a regular job even.‘

Ouch. Ouch.

’Well maybe they see you when you go to the gym?‘

’No. I don’t work out.‘

I am single, unemployed, my apartment is mistaken for a women’s apartment, and I am out of shape. On top of that, I was just robbed. ‘Thanks for the salt, my wound wasn’t hurting enough.”

-Kevin