554 West 50 Street,

Manhattan, NY 10019

The rent was more affordable and the apartment was larger than most apartments on 10th and 9th Ave. There was always heat and the neighbors were nice. The management team took care of any issues we had in a timely manner.

We cook a lot and there was zero ventilation in the apartment. After moving we noticed all of our items that weren’t in the bedroom were covered in a thick dusty coating of oil.
The common areas were seldom cleaned. No matter how much I cleaned my floors they always were dirty. I wound up having to scrub the staircase and hallways that led to my apartment to keep my apartment floors clean even though we don’t wear our shoes inside.
There were roaches everywhere even though I deep cleaned all the time and had pest control products throughout the apartment.
The radiators made a lot of noise. Extreme banging noises that woke us up extremely early.
Overall we felt like all of our energy was draining after spending a few minutes in the apartment. We wound up trying to spend as much time as possible outside of the apartment.

Have a cleaning service sweep and mop the common areas every other week.
Better pest control. Figure out the issue with the radiators.

The neighbors? But nothing about the building or management

The building has roaches and bugs all throughout. Walking up the stairs, you’ll see them scurrying around.
10 months into my 12 month lease, my radiator and the rise pipes started spitting brown, disgusting water into my walls and making loud hissing and banging noises beyond the normal level of a nyc radiator. I promptly called the office to get this fixed. Three weeks later, the pipes were still waking me up suddenly at 4,5,6,7AM like clockwork. All of this even after calling and notifying the landlord office several time per week and practically begging for it to be repaired.
When I visited the office to discuss terminating the lease 1 month early, the landlord, Joseph Giaimo, screamed at me, told me he would sue me, “fucking bankrupt” me, and ruin my credit. I asked him why he would think of suing me when he’s breaking the terms of the lease, and he told me he would “fucking break” me because he’s a lawyer and he’s rich. All this during the pandemic with no mask on. And all of this over terminating the lease 1 month early because he would not provide me with a habitable apartment.

My recommendation would be to never rent from this man or anything he’s affiliated with.

-anger management counseling
-repair things in a timely fashion
-wear a mask during a pandemic if you’re doing business.