Reposted (I'm told this wasn't visible the 1st time)

[ceebeegee]

Anya's ceiling fell in this morning.

There's been a number of problems with this building ever since I moved in December of 2008. The main one is the door--the magnetized lock is easy to defy just by taping over the magnet, and there's an element in the building that just does not want the building to be secure. They are constantly breaking the lock. It's infuriating. Jason has tried to fix the lock and they've gotten worse--they literally rip out the wires. Immediately.

Another problem is the constant, disgusting litter. There are some real pigs in the building and they have no problem just dropping their potato chip bags, their banana peels, their Ensure cans, any old place. Klas-say! It's humiliating--I really don't want to live in a building with a bunch of pigs who litter. The thing is, Calvin also lives in Inwood just a few blocks away and I've been house-sitting--his building demographic is exactly the same as mine but that building is spotless. It's not about demographics, it's not about poor people or whatever. It's about pigs who can't be bothered to pick up after themselves. Jason had me put up signs warning people not to litter and some thug-ass loser ripped up the signs and left the pieces on the floor. Stay klassy, pigs!

Anya's ceiling has been leaking whenever it rained hard (as far as I know, this didn't happen when Lori was there) and one of Jason's contractors (all of them, without fail, do a half-assed job. Everything's tilted or not quite finished or something) has been literally just painting over the problem. So this morning the ceiling just caved in. So now there's a huge hole over the window--you can look up into the structure of the ceiling and see that they didn't really fix it. She's very upset. I told her to take pictures and urged her to ask for a rent abatement. Lori told me that Jason should move us to a nicer building for the same rent, although at this point I don't really want him as a landlord, as nice as he can be. He just doesn't care enough which is odd since I know he really wants to keep us as tenants. When I moved in he put in a new closet in my room (without my asking for it) and he's asked us to refer his building. Jason, if you want middle-class tenants you have to keep the place clean and PAINT it. It has to look decent, and secure.

GOD. SO SICK OF THIS SHIT. So, so sick of all this.

I have no idea why I have such colossally terrible housing luck. I pay my rent on time, my credit is good--why can't I just find a decent building I can afford, with a lock that works and no littering pigs, in a decent neighborhood?

So yeah, I'll almost certainly be looking to move AGAIN at some point soon.

Comments

[jayspec.livejournal.com]

Might I suggest that you use the services of a broker this time? Brokers know things like "this landlord is a schmuck" or "this building is full of thugs." And since you pay the fee no matter which apartment you choose, the broker really is working in your best interests (rather than most places, where the landlord pays the fee to find tenants). I know it's expensive, but wouldn't you have paid it if it meant you could have escaped your unfortunate series of apartment debacles?

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

My worry about brokers is that, since their fee is based on a percentage of the rent, they won't tell me about the lower-priced apartments. I mean, I can't go above $100, period. There's no negotiating that. And it has to be rent-stabilized--the building in West Harlem jacked up the rent nearly 10% after that first year, after promising they wouldn't at the singing of the lease. (Thanks, guys! Crappy security AND you're liars!) But if you mention this to brokers, they automatically say "nope, there's nothing out there," at least that's the experience I had. They think they can coax you into that larger rent. Has that ever happened to you? (Also, I think I've always been scarred by Ryan and Tracy's first NYC apartment experience where they paid a broker and got a crappy apartment with some kind of horrible bug infestation. A year later they had to do the whole thing over again.)

That said, if I knew I would end up with an apartment I like (clean, decent landlord, no pigs), I would pay the one-time fee, gladly. I'll look into it--can you recommend someone in Manhattan? Someone who doesn't mind finding apartments for non-rich people?

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

$1100. Whoops.

[carasol.livejournal.com]

As ever, if you like, I'll recommend you to my landlord and see if he has anything in my building.

[jayspec.livejournal.com]

Oy $1,100 isn't much. (But it's much more of a renter's market now than it was the last time you looked... you might be surprised.) When we got our apartment in Astoria, we used our friend Nicole, who's no longer living in NYC. We paid $1,200 (now $1,350).

[planga.livejournal.com]

Though I never wound up with a Manhattan apartment, I can tell you to stay away from Debbie Gibson (not that one, the one who pretends to be a broker). She annoyed the piss out of me.

If you want Hoboken I can recommend a couple (one is even - if you can believe it - an attractive female Star Trek geek).

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

Thanks, you guys, for all your advice--once Anya & I take care of the ceiling situation, we'll figure out where we want to go from there. Me, I just want to break the lease, with his permission, and get the hell out. But we'll see what ourr options are.