104 Dean Street,

Brooklyn, NY 11201

For the neighborhood/location the studio apartment was a nice size for the price. There are nice big windows and I couldn’t hear my neighbors while I was inside my apartment. My only noise complaints were from outside noise—the pigeons that constantly coo from the window ledges and the schoolyard across the street can get a bit noisy during the day (only an issue if you work from home). The landlord is pretty responsive. The place is fine, I mostly left because the space was too small for an unexpected shift to full-time work from home situation.

The plumbing has issues that I couldn’t get repaired during covid times (the cold water in the shower randomly shuts off and comes back on for minutes at a time making showers difficult). Also, the communal areas and front yard were only cleaned once in the year that I lived there. But the main issue is the lack of tenant mailboxes and general mail insecurity. I had multiple packages stolen while I lived there. They installed a nest camera so I could have video of the package stealers but that’s it. No signs put up, no alerting other tenants, no doing anything to deter package thieves. We were on our own with that one. Having to sort through your neighbors mail is awkward and a pain for everyone. Lastly, I had to follow-up quite a bit to get my security deposit back which didn’t feel great and I didn’t get it until a month and a half after I moved out.

The building needs some work—the plumbing, the staircase, the front door, the buzzer system, and the front yard all need to be rebuilt and/or cleaned and maintained more often. The window ledges need to be cleaned from all the pigeons. It’s such a nice building in a great location but it needs some serious love and attention. And the mail situation really needs to be fixed, it’s time.