But haven't I already blogged about mice?
Oh yes, in February of 2006 NYC Chumps or NYC Rats, how much are you willing to pay?
I've only had one look at the apartment I might take on 96th street. Thanks to the holidays I'm having a rethink. Thanks to an overaggressive agency, one that got me this mini-nightmare where I currently reside by the way, a really good rethink.
One of the items the agent was discussing with me was the fireplace. I asked simply if it was sealed and he did not know. Then he said he'd rather mice be crawling across the floor in front of you than the rats that are in the subway or a raccoon.
LOL
I said you know I did see a raccoon on the 95th Street on First Avenue.
So i am just now looking up this raccoon business. It appears if you see a raccoon on the street you should report it. I was thinking does the East River have raccoons? at the time. After all there were fruit bats in Grand Central and the police thought that was kind of neat. [lol wrote about that in my Kick Ass blog Grand Central, New York City, Bat Friendly ]
hmmm
According to this December 2009 NYTimes City Room Blog the raccoons are rabid and causing a stir in the part of Central Park that is at 95-96th street. Oh my gosh so I didn't just have an unusual perspective when I thought it was looking at me haggardly.
[The city blog featured me once for writing about the police at Columbus Square, note 2010 must do a lot more writing and photo logging of city things this year, rise above the health issues. However I am down on the paper as we had a blast out over disability cases and last I knew that I was giving it to the LA Times if they don't cooperate within 24 hours lol like so what]
Back to those subway rats....
I actually did have one of them waddle right in front of me at my Hell's Kitchen apartment (oh I didn't know, Mayor Dinkins rezoned it to Central Park South). I land line phoned the landlord up and they just asked me what color and stated they'd be over sometime the following week. They stated that's because I have food. Ahem I stated I live in Poughkeepsie during the week and come back some weekends to check up on things; there is not a stitch of food in this apartment.
Correlative events had happened earlier in the year when I had been working across the street at a major media corporation and they were becoming so much more relative, clearer. I had been home sick and witnessed very hot water flooding from the cabinets in the kitchen and then evaporating. These landlords had just renovated this apartment to electric heating, electric cooking the whole works. They had illegally doubled the rent stabilized apartment to do so. This was the first rent controlled apartment I had ever had so at the time I did not know that you could get a copy of your apartment's history (actually you could not) nor was the landlord required to state the last rent on your lease. All I knew was that my electric bills were $400 a month and I did not have a single electric appliance or clock except what the landlord had newly installed in the apartment. The electric company would give me their bureaucratic sass upon several inquiries. After that water leak discovery and repair the bills fell down to $20 a month. The landlord stated that it was not their fault.
See how it is? That is exactly the ripoff that has been going on for years except for now its right in front of your face as if to say hahaha there is nothing you can do.
I'm in awe in remembrance; mainly because this guy next door is playing the phrase 'silent night, silent night" over and over again since 9:00am and still going on with it at noon. I take it he's some kind of composer.
And yesterday about midnight someone was banging down the front door and then finally I heard the second door being flicked. Then there was that awful oppressive smoke that some of these people in this building puff up to my room. What an ass I thought, smoking in the hallway. Call the police? LOL they'll just come in four hours and look at the outside of the building and say they found nothing. This isn't Harlem where they come within five minutes.
In my 135th street apartment that I shared with oh so many other people one of my roommates had also heard the storming of our door and she called the police. They found fresh spit at the doorway but alas, we were supposed to have the culprit handcuffed and inside the apartment waiting for them. The next day our landlord phone me up to say that we better not call the police again.
The guy below me in current apartment thought it was rather drastic that I had called the police when this next door neighbor was playing band music in my room from 1am-5am. LOL I wrote that neighbor a month before about the sounds that were pounding me, the vibrations of my bed, the floor. I'd already written the landlord. I called 311 halfway through their something majorly wrong with you and they recommended the police who later claimed they came at 7am. I don't think they did. I did not hear anyone call out police and no one rang my video camera.
The way that guy below me leaves the front door open so he can bring in his piles and piles of groceries or get his family out on a trip...literally hours... I can imagine he could not give a damn about security. Oh he has an alarm on his door. His dog still barks for hours in the afternoon and the night, sometimes in the morning. I know there is someone home. I think that should be reported to Cruelty to Animals before the police. Still...he is on the board of this coop. He's the bully, the one that hears hammering and knocks at my door no matter what time of day and shouts out are you hammering. LOL I don't even own a hammer and why should I? I am just a rental tenant. Later he'll tell you when you inquire on the street that it was the construction outside or oh its the people upstairs. When you ask him if he hears the guy next door to me he'll say no and wouldn't he if there was a problem? I answer well its just that guy and me with the same floor and wall. The bully will turn red in the face just like when you answered his people can smoke in their apartment with I don't care what they do in their apartment we are talking about what they are doing in mine. When you come into the building you hear the practice, band and music. When you come up to my door it sounds like the music is coming from my apartment.
Yep, this is the apartment this real estate agency got me and said they helped manage. That is what the agent from the same agency is telling me about the possibly new apartment. Its the same thing floors that have gaps that are not going to be rectified by change in season. An apartment that needs to be sanitized in the bathroom and I did not check out the stove. Yet the same thing is said they don't have to clean the apartment and they are not going to fix the floor.
The item that should set off all kinds of alarms within me warped windows, windows with more than two dollar high width of open. I mean, really, girl how bad do you want to move out of your current $1100 a month joint?
The agent states that they just need to caulk the window more and he points to the other badly caulked window. Now I know exactly what it is to be totally frozen out in winter and have flies coming in during warm weather. Its nothing I want to repeat. I noticed the landlord did not come back to me with they'll fix the windows or seal the fireplace when I inquired to the agent in writing. The fireplace has wood in it and I was told the landlord doesn't really want you to use it. That lets me know it has not been cleaned or sealed.
You know if not now then its going to be never. Yep they have the same spiel that after the first of the year they are going to raise the rent if they can't get it rented this year. I'm like, hmmm they are rent stabilized. I'm pretty sure they can't do any of that.
I wrote a chimney company about the fireplace and they said that sealing the fireplace is easily done with a handyman. So looked sealing up on e-how and I'm like I think it would take a bit more than that. If they don't have a damper on the roof its going to cost money. Handymen cost at least $100. I suppose its relative to what the chimney company would cost.
As to the windows if caulking fails as it is so miserably doing in that apartment then the trouble is with the window components; meaning the windows would have to be replaced. Thus its not an economical thing for this landlord to do.
The floor seems as if it could be remedied. When I spoke of it to the agent at our only meeting he said remember you can lose your deposit for damaging the floor. pinch pinch should that have not set off some more alarms? Really is my current apartment that bad in light of the fact that there probably is rampant smoking in this potential home building? I will visit the apartment again when there are a lot of people at home, definitely have to come there at night or 11am on a weekend. Also, other people who smoke will most likely move in. So....yep we need a whopping court case to settle all the smoke issue once and for all. Apparently I'm the only one who can really do it.
This current apartment is way bad yet it does have its redeeming features being that I have the option of an elevator and the windows are extraordinarily good so I do not freeze at all. Bugs lol there are many. Still that place seems to have the potential for a lot more than that.
Yes I will hold steady. I have more research to do and then weigh everything. I am so glad I have this time to do it.
After all when you go to the building department violations page for the current apartment it has so many unresolved complaints regarding the elevator and the environmental department concerning unauthorized plumbing in the basement. The floor in current apartment has always had a soft spot and lots of squeaks. I could not get the landlord to take care of it before I moved in. The agent said this is a sponsor unit and they do not want to spend one penny on it; it is income for the coop. As to the toilet in current place I was not allowed to test it because it wasn't on. They said when the apartment is unoccupied it is turned off. The toilet has never worked properly, often quite scary. The landlord said they had to ship a part in three months. When three months was up and there was no part I asked. They did not answer and I asked again in person and the partner grimaced as if I was complaining too much. LOL these New York City landlords are beyond the pale of integrity. Potential toilet is also brown but it did flush weakly. hmmm
Of course this new apartment is totally clean on the Buildings violations department site. There were problems with the boiler in 2003 but since then nothing. You have no complaints about stairs, or doors or anything. Back in 1990s there was a complaint about construction on the street and cracks in the building but the buildings department did not find it to be so. Not that I trust the buildings department. The new apartment has one of the cleanest violations department records. That is pretty amazing. Does it speak well for the building or do they have their most excellent hand in?
In a way its onwards for me. There are other apartments in the city and I will use this Friday to dig in to that treasure chest yardeharharhar. It would probably be best to stay away from that last real estate agency anyway. Each agent there is a clone of the other. They all say the same lying things. I am going to be totally pinched if I give a fee of $1750 to one of these agents for sure and the place winds up to be worse than the last. The new apartment will cost the same as the present apartment with that fee for the first year. However the new apartment is rent stabilized so you won't have some greedy coop raising it at whim nor storming on you for another lease when they haven't signed the first and then giving you one that has all the prices changed and when they can kick you out. A rent stabilized lease will not be able to kick you out just because. The same rights to take each apartment to Housing court are there, but why would I want to do that?
