New, better owner
Pros
Location right by Sunset Park, Good light, High ceilings, Top of the hill, Good restaurants, Good (cheap) laundromat nearby, Great commute to the City
Cons
Poor grocery-store situation, NO dry cleaners nearby, Old kitchen and bathroom, Roaches and mice a problem for some tenants
Advice to the owners
Do a systematic eradication of pests
to be avoided
Pros
prewar framing on the walls, big tub with overhead shower head (clawfoot tubs in some units, which is pretty cool). High ceilings. Nice patterned hardwood floors.
Cons
The building contains several rent controlled units. The landlord takes this out on everyone else, raising the rent a minimum of $100 a year. (This is not the fault of the tenants in the rent control units— affordable housing should not hurt other). Meanwhile, many of the rent-controlled tenants are loud and disruptive, screaming at all hours. The landlord will do nothing about this. The landlord will evict people for having pets, even a housecat, but allows the rent control tenants to have large dogs. When there are actual problems in the building, the landlord refuses to get involved: tenants dumping their garbage out on the landing, scammers coming to trick people into signing up for fake energy companies, domestic abuse, stalking of other tenants. It's bad. The buildings are falling apart and the landlord is doing very few renovations. The apartment you start with is what you get. Layers and layers of paint coat the walls. Tenants are not allowed to hang anything from the windows, not even a planter. Landlord was frequently emotional, screamed at me over the phone many times, and blamed me for the problems in her personal life when I asked her to deal with basic issues in the building. A hostile relationship at best. The washer and dryer cost money in the building rarely work. No refunds when you go back downstairs to find the dryers haven't worked and you have to carry a cold wet load of laundry up to your apartment and drape the clothing until it dries.
Advice to the owners
Start making changes now or you're going to get visited by three ghosts.
/-74.001899,40.648899,14/640x640@2x?access_token=pk.eyJ1Ijoib3BlbmlnbG9vIiwiYSI6ImNsYjNmMjVwdzBjeHgzd21wYmJmZDB0eGYifQ.XZvZCOh51yXuDBE-I3Bg0A)
/-74.003433,40.651374,14/640x640@2x?access_token=pk.eyJ1Ijoib3BlbmlnbG9vIiwiYSI6ImNsYjNmMjVwdzBjeHgzd21wYmJmZDB0eGYifQ.XZvZCOh51yXuDBE-I3Bg0A)