196 Clinton Avenue,

Brooklyn, NY 11205

Location is okay? Close to Ft Greene park.

Management will get back to you, but they’ll send the super to fix it. Everything is JUST enough, but still subpar. Garbage management is a sanitation hazard. Building could be beautiful with a little bit of care.

Great location, North facing side of building is pretty quiet and beautiful views. Super lives onsite and is pretty friendly. Recently fixed door buzzer system. Walls are thick, can’t hear my neighbors. Old building so the stairwells are really wide (easy for moving and carrying big boxes) and every room has a window in my apartment. Dog friendly!

Not great clarity on when fixes are happening (took forever to get the buzzers fixed and door locks replaced, and no one knew when we would have to switch over to new keys). Floors are old so I can hear upstairs neighbors walking around. For fixes in the apt the super isn’t always clear on when he’s coming, so you wait around all day. With so many people WFH there’s so much garbage, the trash area piles up and has rats. Building stairs are grubby, don’t get cleaned often or thoroughly.

Do better upkeep on the building and common spaces so it feels more livable. The building is so charming but the dirtiness in the common space makes it much less livable. Make sure the facilities are working (laundry, mailboxes, buzzers).

Everyone is nice. Landlords stay off your ass. Space is large and affordable.. for NYC, anyway. You can decorate your apartment however you want, even repainting. Pet friendly.

Rodents are a huge issue.. prepare yourself for a DIY 12 hour caulking job. Monthly exterminator is never surprised when you tell them about roach appearances as apparently every apartment has them. Electrical and plumbing work is a joke. Neither have been maintained in decades. The drafts are ridiculous. All the windows are broken, floors are caving and wind is coming up. Super doesn’t respond at all and when he does, don’t expect a job well done.. or even done. Pretty poorly maintained in general.

Hire another super. Renovate.

It’s a charming building, in a great location, with large pre-war apartments.

Takes forever to get maintenance issues fixed, constant litter in the courtyard, hallways, and out front causing a lot of rats in the garbage area, broken washing machines, faulty locks on entrance doors (currently not locking at all).

Fix things.
Keep the building clean (interior exterior) so we don’t have rats and roaches. Seems to have gotten even dirtier with COVID.
Maintain common spaces.
Make security tighter.

It was a quiet apartment for 2 of the 3 years I lived there. Laundry machines usually worked too, lots of laundry, but they only take cash and only big bills.

I moved after they started construction on the building next door. For about a year, I would wake up every single day to jackhammers only a few feet from my bedroom window. As far as I know there is still construction happening there.

The garbage was always full and had a million flies. You have you go past all the garbage to get to the downstairs laundry.

Management is unfortunately lacking. I reported a water leak multiple times and watched it grow big and get covered in mold over the span of two months. The landlords didn't care until I reported the leak to the city and a health inspector took a look. They replaced the drywall but didn't fix the leak so it started again about a month later. I also found large stress fractures on one of my walls and reported it. Same thing, no response until I got the city involved. Except now the landlords were pissed so they came out and intimidated me for reporting their inaction to the city