18-10 Astoria Park South,

Queens, NY 11102

The apartments are very nice looking. Modern appliances, big windows, bright, airy, outdoor space and reasonably affordable. Location can't be beat. Literally directly across the street from the park.

Hot water is hit or miss. Couldn't get hot water in the kitchen unless hot water was also turned on at the same time in the bathroom. Even then it wasn't that hot or didn't last long. Same idea with the installed AC/heating units. One wouldn't work unless the other was on. The split unit on the walls almost never worked. No AC in the summer, no heat in the winter. They turn on, they just don't cool/heat. We literally had ConEd bills of $500-$600 bills about 6 months of the year. For a 2br apartment. My best guess is the wires are crossed somewhere during installation, and they probably cut corners. A temporary fix was to have the AC people come out and put in more freon. This had to happen twice a summer, and the AC would work for a few days before it stopped.

Turning on heat via thermostat did literally nothing. The heat in the floor boards never came on no matter what. Heat/AC issues was the #1 problem of living there. Also, our oven didn't work for an entire year, and the landlord kept delaying until I ultimately called someone out to fix it, paid for it, and had to charge the landlord. He did eventually reimburse me, but it wasn't easy getting him to.

Also the building has no super. Tenants are responsible for taking the trash cans out and shoveling snow, both on a rotating basis. One month it's apartment 1's responsibility to play super, the next it's apartment 2's, and so on. It's not a crazy hassle, but does feel like another cheap out. Also it means that there is nobody to clean the hallways. The'd get so dirty, my mom would literally sweep and vacuum the halls when she visited.

I've lived in many apartments in NYC over the years, and getting back your security deposit is almost always an adventure, but the owner of this place was in a league of his own. First, he required TWO MONTHS deposit. That plus first months rent, and it cost us 9k to just sign the lease. So our total security was a little over 6k. He tried to keep almost half, we threatened legal action, had a lawyer write a response on our behalf, and eventually settled. He gave us back 5k. Some of his charges were insane. He wanted $50 per AC unit for failing to clean the filters!

Lets see, what else... Oh yeah, he has a clause in the lease that states that the monthly rent is actually $300 MORE than what you are expected to pay. So our rent was actually $3100, but we only paid $2800. Sounds great, right? Well, the reason for this, is that he can actually have discretion to legally charge you more (fine you basically) if he wants to. It's phrased as a monthly discretionary discount. So if you miss your super responsibilities and the city fines him, he passes that right along to you, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Bottom line is the owner of this building was constantly shady and cut corners every chance he got. This place is not worth it. Lipstick on a pig. The building was brand new when we moved in, and every tenant was the first one in their place, and in my 3 years there, every place but one turned over, and every neighbor left in a negative manner. DON'T DO IT.

Nice wood finishing inside apartment, really close to the park

Hot water issues. Boiler will turn off when it gets suddenly cold outside (this is NYC though, this happens all the time) leaving you with no hot water or gas heat in the middle of winter. Hot water goes in and out unless you leave the kitchen sink on hot while you shower (???). The water heater is “on demand” so it only starts when you turn the faucet on. We’ve also been advised to turn up the gas heat before turning in hot water. Sometimes we wait 15 min for water to heat up. Sometimes it turns on. Sometimes after 30 min we discover the boiler has stopped working and we have to wait for the landlord to swing by and look at the issue. Boiler room is locked for tenants.

If the water boiler has turned off, this means gas heat is off and you have to use the electric heater in the rooms. High electricity bills in winter.

Dryer in building doesn’t work well so usually we go to the laundromat around the corner. General hallway area never gets cleaned, it gets pretty dusty in there.

Tenants manage trash themselves by pulling trash to curb on assigned days, but if you have neighbors who don’t flatten their boxes or organize their trash, it becomes your problem. Sometimes sanitation dept won’t take the garbage if you just pull the bins out, you have to take all the garbage bags out of the bin and onto the curb.

If you have a winter month assigned, you shovel the snow in front of the building. No salt is provided. This one is really whether you’re lucky or not to hit a big snow storm that year.

The walls do not get repainted between tenants, even after 3 years. When we left we repainted parts where we hung up paintings out of courtesy for the next tenant but this is not normally something I had to do in previous NYC rentals. The wood floors are soft and scratch easily, it will get taken from your deposit.

If you’re okay with the hot water inconsistency and workarounds to get consistent hot water, maybe this place is for you.

The hot water inconsistency is a deal breaker and makes winters pretty unbearable.