10 Year Tenant Here
Pros
Amazing neighborhood! Really, it’s the sweet spot of Astoria with some of the best bars and restaurants. They added in 4 washing machines and 4 dryers to the basement a few years back...just watch out for homeless people with knives that have been caught hiding down there 🤦🏻♀️
Cons
Where to start? There is zero climate control. The building has 75 yr old radiators with missing knozzles. The heat distribution is so poor that they boil the first floor units to provide a tiny bit of heat to the top three floors. I lived on the first floor and literally had to keep my windows open all winter (even at night) to keep from sweating - security vulnerability #1 The front security door doesn’t provide you with any security at all. I’ve had dozens of packages go missing. Dozens. And they weren’t “undelivered” because I’ve seen the carrier’s photo of it sitting in front of my door. After years of this I finally reached out to the property manager to complain and sure enough they showed me a video of a man gaining access to the security door, moseying around the building going “shopping” for packages, stealing mine & others & even a bike! No joke. When I asked how the person was able to enter without a key they said “It’s not our fault, we’re not accountable, someone must have buzzed him in”. Regardless who’s fault it is, I’m telling you this building has zero security. If it was that easy for a thief to get in then it’s equally as easy for someone with more ominous intentions to get in as well. I’ve heard multiple stories from neighbors about them running downstairs to grab their laundry, only to find random non-tenant individuals rummaging through their items trying to steal them. Oh and there was a man living in the basement with a knife and he accosted the super’s wife. I could go on and on about how slow the super is to fix anything, how poorly maintained the units are, or how when a man died in our building and all 4 floors smelled like rotting flesh (they found him 10 days after he deceased) they did absolutely nothing about it...but just use your common sense and live somewhere with proper security. I no longer felt safe.
Advice to the owners
Invest in security
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