432 East 136 Street,

Bronx, NY 10454

Lived on the 2nd-&-3rd floor duplex of this building for the past 2 years. 2 bd/2 ba. This is a beautiful old building in South Bronx. The rooms are spacious and ceilings are high. The bathrooms get good air flow and include a washer/dryer in unit. Also a functional dishwasher and large fridge.

Unfortunately, this building is owned by an extremely miserly and misogynistic landlord, who makes a hefty income by harassing tenants. He and his lawyer wife will nickel-and-dime you for all you're worth. There's no real way to avoid them, as the landlord will nitpick about everything and force lengthy back-and-forths via email - about things as small as, acknowledging that you received your keys. The landlord first tried to sell the building (summer/fall of 2022), forcing us to agree to open houses every Sunday, and we received no rent deductions or anything in return for having to evacuate our homes every weekend. This lasted for 3 months. He apparently received really strong offers, but refused them, because of course -- he's extremely greedy. He then decided to install mini-splits for heating/cooling, and the 6-month-long process involved giving us a 1-2 day notice before workers would arrive, demanding that we tenants be present to open the doors for the workers and oversee the work, leaving gaping holes in the bedroom walls for several months (which then led to a mouse infestation), and trashing the apartment on every visit. The workers also scratched up the floors (since the landlord did not place mats to protect his floors), which the landlord then charged us for (by deducting repair fees from our security deposit). He will try to take as much of your deposit as possible - so please, please document everything, take lots of photos on move-in and prior to and after any worker entering the apartment. His style is to respond to any request or issue (no matter how small) with an essay-long email shirking all responsibility for his property, and all basic duties as a landlord. He will rarely ever show his face at the property, refusing to even be present during repair or construction work (the mini-split installation, plumbing work, electric work, etc). He will NOT compensate you for all the damages / time/ stress caused by his building renovation projects - in fact, you will end up paying HIM for the damages, in the end. He will also accuse you of hysteria/ being overly emotional for responding to his outrageous emails with righteous anger and legal facts. He manipulates tenants into taking on the role of a building supervisor or landlord, and unless you are willing to give him endless time, energy, and money, he will treat you with the utmost disrespect. He also treats workers horribly, and you'll hear from workers who come by to do construction, plumbing, and electric work, that he underpays them and is extremely and unreasonably demanding -- though he will have the audacity to complain to you, the tenant, that the workers did not do xyz and that is the reason why xyz is now your responsibility/burden. It is truly a mental hell to deal with this landlord, and makes living here an absolute ordeal. In addition, the duplex set-up is a bit hard, since the staircase between floors is not well maintained, super super dusty/moldy, and the roof overlaying it leaks whenever it rains. The landlord is far too miserly to make necessary repairs to these communal spaces - i.e. the front doors, hallways, etc. The building is a beautiful one with a long history, but is unfortunately mismanaged by this landlord. Most of his tenants are new to the city, gentrifiers, many of them immigrants who may not have a good understanding of NYC tenant laws. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention - this landlord also forced me to manage my roommate's half of the security deposit (use it to pay for cleaners and repairs that I had to organize myself -- she had damaged a bunch of things) and then deal with my former roommate's expected wrath that her deposit had been largely taken, when she moved out and a new roommate moved in. It was outrageous, but I had no legal recourse. We paid $2745 monthly for this 2 bd/ 2 ba, lost a huge chunk of our deposit, and also gave the landlord our unpaid labor to act as a building Super and oftentimes, do the job of the landlord himself.

Please learn to be a better role model for your children.