The building is not bad
Pros
- For the price you get a really responsive landlord and a pretty good value in terms of apartment size. You also have balconies in all apartments besides 1st floor. - rent-stabilized building - landlord is a really nice, friendly man and is on site a few times a week and you can catch him while he is taking care of the several buildings he has on the block. - heat, gas and water are included in your rent which is extra nice - you don’t see much of the neighbors as this is a small building, but for the most part they are normal/quiet people. No loud parties in the building or anything like that. - you are in the heart of Astoria, you are literally a 5 min walk to the subway and a 5-7 min walk to supermarkets/restaurants/bars and nightlife’s. This is the perfect level of proximity because you are not right on the avenues where you would actually be right in the midst of the drunk, loud crowds at night but you are still very close.
Cons
- Thin floors, so you hear the neighbors walking constantly. You also tend to hear their voices sometimes even in a normal (not raised volumes) conversation and of course any of their TVs or electronic devices. - garbage outside tends to overflow by mid to end of the week and you have to start walking around all the various paper/recycling piles that sometimes overflow and accumulate. Garbage collection prep and cleanup takes places on Sunday’s and collection itself happens on Mondays so you sometimes have to do that walking around the piles for days. - if you have a street-facing apartment keep in mind that the street gets extra busy during rush hour, with traffic backed up on it pretty frequently due to its narrow nature. You will hear honking and just lots of trucks and heavy traffic coming through. On top of that, the elevated train is a block away so you will hear it as well, but I would say the sounds of traffic in the mornings is worse than the sound of the train. - inside the building is naturally clean just cause there aren’t a lot of tenants and it’s small but nonetheless there is no cleaning taking place on regular basis.
Advice to the owners
My advice would be to put thicker carpeting in all apartments, as the floors are extremely thin and the regular carpets do not do anything to cover up the noise. Additionally, garbage maintenance and clean up should happen 2x/week.
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