47-6 45 Street,

Queens, NY 11377

Genuinely, absolutely nothing.

To preface this review, I’ve lived in NYC for seven years, in every borough (besides Queens until this apartment) and never in my life experienced anything like this. For starters, this building is disgusting. It is not well-kept whatsoever and the management company (AE Real Estate) couldn’t care less. They mop the lobby area and that’s it. It is a four story walk up and I lived on the fourth floor. When viewing the apartment it seemed ideal being that it was newly renovated and nobody had ever previously lived in it. Very shortly after moving in, I came to realize that means absolutely nothing in NYC.

Safety: My second day living there I had someone break into my apartment through a window (they didn’t have the lock on the window properly installed upon move-in) by climbing the scaffolds (they also didn’t have the scaffolds properly locked I later learned, so people were had full access to climb and enter them). Luckily, they only took a little bit of money I had laying out (I only had a few bags of clothes there at the time) and I wasn’t there. What makes this scary is the building failed to inform me of the several break-ins they had in the previous few few months (I found this out by my neighbor downstairs). Break-ins continued to happen and the management company failed to inform/warn the other residents for months until we all got together to complain, so they finally decided to put up a few printed out signs.

Cleanliness: This building is ridden with roaches, rodents (mice and a raccoon), and yellow jackets (I know, so weird and sounds unbelievable, but I have videos of both a raccoon living on my fire escape for days and yellow jackets that somehow found there way into my bathroom). Roaches were everywhere. My neighbors and I all believed the pipes/walls were infested because they had the same issues. I had a brand new dishwasher I never used because anytime I opened it there were several living in the dishwasher. I would find them in my kitchen, my cabinets, my closets, the bathroom, the bedroom, and no matter what I did (caulking all holes, never leaving a trace of food waste/no dishes in the sink/or garbage overnight, spraying everywhere, powder lining the door, etc.) they lived there with me rent free (and not one or two, serval every day since the time I moved in until the time I moved out). I even was signed up for the twice a month extermination visit (scary that’s how infested the building is). There was a massive hole in the floor board that they covered up to make it seem fixed and due to that I had several mice in the apartment. Once I *actually* stuffed and fixed the hole, I never saw a mouse again, though. I know this seems like a made up story (and if I could post pictures/videos, I would), but I had a raccoon living on my fire escape for days. When I told my super/management company, it took them six days (it would return everyday to the same spot on my fire escape for those six days) to remove it. Odder than that, I would wake up in the morning to a few yellow jackets in my bathroom (some alive and some dead) because they infested the wall outside my bathroom window (you could hear them buzzing around when you went to brush your teeth in the morning and if you looked out the bathroom window, you could see hundreds swarming). Again, another issue I noted to them for months, but until the very last day I moved out, I had yellow jackets flying in and around my bathroom (the winter was the only time I didn’t have the issue, naturally).

Water: I had brown water running from my faucet every so often in the bathroom. I took videos of it in the bath and sink and showed my super and he said “there’s nothing he can do about it” so I filed a formal complaint through the information 311 gave me because there’s no way that can be sanitary.

Heat: Come winter you will be so confused why your gas bill is the number it is because it was freezing all.the.time. When it did turn on, they would turn it on at 5:00 AM (like clock work) and it was so loud (no dramatization) I’d wake up to the radiators every morning. I asked the super through my whole time there to please fix them as it was unrealistic for me to have to wake up to that noise everyday. Another video recording I have because it sounds so unreal to be true, but it sounded like those eco-friendly metal straws being banged against a tin can with a nice tone of hissing (where the steam would come out). I grew up in an old house with the same old radiators and they never made that noise, ever.

Mailboxes: I have no clue how this would happen, but mailboxes would get opened and people’s mail was always tossed on the floor. My neighbors and I found this disturbing, so it was another complaint we all banned together to make.

COVID 19: They decided, even after all these issues I experienced, they were going to increase my rent. Upon that decision, as much of it is a hassle to move, I moved out the day my lease was up in the middle of a pandemic.

Be realistic about the condition the building’s in and FIX THE ISSUES and have some pride in the property you own. It makes me sick not a single concern I shared with them was ever resolved (except for the raccoon being removed after six days of informing them).

All in all, BE BETTER.