31-15 41 Street,

Queens, NY 11103

Location convenient to the subway stop and shops on Steinway.

I don't even know where to begin with this apartment. I stayed here less than a year because I could not get out fast enough. There are so many problems with this building and many of them are connected to the central problem: a landlord who is unresponsive and only concerned with making as much money as possible. My comments pertain to my first floor unit, so maybe it's better on the second floor? Who knows. But here is my list:
1. There was no consistent plan for handling trash or recycling. Bins are placed right outside the first floor windows and several months into my lease, they were no longer being emptied at all. This meant that trash piled up during the winter months, which led to...
2. A HUGE rat problem. Rats were coming in and out of the building from day one, but obviously this problem got much worse once trash was piling up directly in front of the building's front windows. I never actually saw a rat inside, but you better believe I heard them in the walls ALL WINTER. This drove me and my dog insane and was frankly, disgusting and unsanitary. When the landlord was alerted to this issue numerous times, his response: "Oh, well it's New York City, you're gonna have rats, they're unavoidable."
3. Have I mentioned the (illegal?) unit in the basement that I was not alerted to before I moved in? Granted, the guy who was initially living there when I first moved in was handling the trash each week, so that was nice! But once he moved out, some new guy moved in and was no longer handling the trash. That, in turn, led to the trash piling up and resulting rat problem. Either way, pretty sketchy to not alert tenants to the fact that there's an extra person living in the basement! Must have been why I saw the apartment during an open house and not during an individual viewing. SHADY!
4. Moved in during the spring and within a few weeks, my unit was full of house flies every few weeks. No idea why or where they were coming from, exactly. Landlord did get an exterminator to spray, which helped somewhat. But very odd.
5. Walls are thin, so you can smell what your neighbor is cooking (for better or worse) and hear what they're doing.

You could hold on to good tenants if you did the bare minimum to maintain a nice building