22-15 29 Street,

Queens, NY 11105

Doesn’t check your credit history (nor ask for any paystubs, documented proof of employment, tax returns, application fee… wait I never even filled out an application actually)

Imagine owning various properties in New York City and renting out units… then when you need to break into one of them— like, what if you had a squatter? What if there was a fire? What if someone’s decomposing corpse was rotting and stinking up the place? Idk things happen— you show up with some 60-80 unlabeled keys on 4 different rings, no organization rhyme or reason, with a mystery portion of said keys belonging to front door locks for units that may or may not be in your possession anymore, or even match with the current locks… and instead of realizing what an insane problem this was —after you manage to break into your locked-out tenant’s unit with very little force brandishing a screwdriver for 20 seconds but you don’t have to address any security implications there, I mean how else will you get in next time there’s a fire or a dead body, but anyway you had to do that because you tried unsuccessfully to unlock it the normal way for 12 minutes, yelling at the tenant and making them feel bad for something they must’ve just done on purpose to make your life even harder…

Sorry I lost my place. Imagine doing all of that and instead of realizing what an insane problem this was and apologizing to your respectful tenant for losing your cool so quickly at 4pm on a Sunday, then rushing to change every single lock to every single front door of every property you own and labeling the gd keys this time— you instead carry on with your life and worry about your own problems and remind your tenants that your family is going through a LOT whenever they have a reasonable complaint or need urgent help that you are legally obliged to provide. Because life is hard for everyone… but especially for you. Can’t everyone just accept that, and let you continue accepting thousands of dollars from people every month for doing absolutely nothing? And yes, I mean nothing… not even wondering what the result of terrifying levels of neglect have wrought upon at least one of your units over the past 4 years until your new tenant reports 6 maintenance problems over their first 6 weeks? Not even giving this new tenant a copy of the legally binding lease doc they just signed (which you eventually scrapped when the tenant decided to get the hell out of dodge and break the lease 2 months in, due to said maintenance neglect)? Hell, why bother asking for proof of employment or doing a credit or background check at this point? You don’t even know how to unlock the door, that’s their problem now! Ca-ching!

Michael, the landlord, lives every day like it’s his first time on Earth and it’s truly almost impressive how incompetent he is even with little things? The super is his brother Robin, who got really nasty for no clear reason the day I locked myself out of the apartment for the first time in 7 years, just for funsies (he was in and out in 23 min so I assume maybe he was just having a shitty day / embarrassed that he couldn’t identify a single key with it’s respective unit and I told him calmly that this is problematic in itself).

And no, I never received a copy of that lease… maybe he was distracted by his new massive and untrained Samoyed puppy he brought with him to meet me for the very first time with a single sheet of paper to collect my signature. The first time I met the man we couldn’t hear each other speak without shouting over the loud chronic barking of this poor dog.

Problems reported over first six weeks include: demanding the immediate removal of the “owner-maintained” in-wall AC unit containing a visibly deadly amount of black mold spores collected in the unit filter over god knows how many years; random outlet extension covers just falling off the walls; wooden sliding doors of the bedroom closet repeatedly getting off their sliding tracks (3 times a charm, first two times the super literally just wiggled the doors back onto their tracks and told me to let him know if they come off again), GIANT holes in the walls absolutely everywhere left by previous tenant, a giant crack exposing a small hole in the bedroom windowpane (super said he’d repair soon - two weeks into my time there - and never followed up), general dissatisfaction with the filthy state the bedroom I moved into was in although it took two months to fill it (yes my bad I didn’t inspect the floors and air vents etc so carefully but yikes @ everyone involved)… I think that’s everything. Needless to say I was not charged for “breaking the lease”, but if he tried — what lease?

Anyway, if you’re self sufficient, but also currently struggling with unemployment / a criminal record / bad credit, or you find yourself in a pinch and have extremely low expectations, you might like this place. I have no idea what it would take for Michael to do anything proactive for the sake of his property, and I guess I never will… but the writing was on the wall. Literally. There are no signs inside the building aside from two unknown-years-old handwritten notes he wrote, then taped to the walls only a few inches away from each other, that both say “IF YOU HAVE SHOVEL- PLEASE HELP (with shoveling snow.)” Won’t somebody please help him…!

At least pretend that you care