RIP to the Roaches
Pros
The apartment itself has so much space, the two main rooms are absolutely huge for Manhattan. Modern appliances and relatively timely responses from the management company. Pest control comes once a month to spray in the apartments. Super close to the 191st St station.
Cons
The common spaces are filthy. There's a dog that pisses on the stairs every day and the owner doesn't clean it up so there are constantly piss stains on the stairs inside the building. It's supposed to be a non-smoking building, but there's a woman who smokes openly while sitting on the stairs outside her apartment. We have informed management about this, but nothing has been done to change it. The super is friendly and lives onsite but is difficult to contact and often misses his appointments with us. He also finishes work at 4pm so if we are only available after getting off working ourselves, he can't come up to fix anything. We moved into an active roach infestation where there was a roach graveyard on top of the kitchen cabinets and dead roaches inside the body of the microwave. We found that out when we tried to use the microwave fan and it just blew out bits of roach corpses that rained down on us. We told management about this, and they nearly didn't replace the microwave until the unit broke on its own. The windows aren't sealed properly, making temp regulation difficult in the hot and colder months. There's a handful of people who lay on their horns outside no matter what time it is because it's a one-way street and they have zero patience. They don't inform us when they're doing work on the boiler, so we only find out when the water turns brown while we are showering or brushing our teeth. One of us drank the water unknowingly and felt sick for a couple days after. We had to seal all the baseboards ourselves because there were gaps in them that would allow roaches to come through.
Advice to the owners
If I owned a building, I would be embarrassed if it was in this state. Have some pride in what you do because this is someone's home.
First NYC Experience
Pros
- friendly neighbors - low crime, lots of families - convenient travel to the city
Cons
- INFESTED with roaches, extermination only keeps them hidden - stairwells are crumbling and are dirty - tenants often smoke cigarettes in the stairwell
Advice to the owners
If the place was given a deep clean/ mandatory unit inspections then I think the place would feel a lot more like home!