250 East Houston Street,

Manhattan, NY 10009

Great building staff

For context, I lived at this building for 3 years. The first 2 years I had little to no issues and the building itself was great. I am writing this review specifically for unit 5J.

Like many people during Covid I started to work from home and needed more space so I reached out to the building manager to see if I could move to a larger unit at the end of my lease term. They responded to me and told me that I could move to a larger unit upstairs with a balcony for the same price as I was paying downstairs. Amazing, I thought… but the unit was an absolute NIGHTMARE!

A few months after having my apartment moved upstairs to apartment 5J I started to smell cigarette smoke, I thought that maybe it was just from a party next door and that the smell would go away no big deal. WRONG!

Every. Single. Day. The smell became more and more evident. I asked the building staff about it and they informed me that in fact, my neighbor whom had lived there for decades was an avid chain smoker and it was something that had been going on for years.

I felt totally betrayed, the building had known the whole time that this was an issue, and refused to disclose it to me. Since the building is advertised as “non smoking” I reached out to the building manager and begged and pleaded to move units or vacate my lease.

They promised me as soon as a new unit hit the market I could have first dibs - that never happened (even though plenty of units had come to market in the interim) for months and months I begged and pleaded to move units, I couldn’t sleep at night, I was coughing, itchy eyes, tight chest from the second hand smoke. It was like living in an ashtray. The smoke (since we shared a wall) was coming mostly through the kitchen, specifically through the gaps by the pipes! I couldn’t even use my kitchen because of the fear the smoke was settling in the pipes! Not to mention a lot of this was going on during Covid, a complete health hazard.

It became so bad I had to visit urgent care twice in 4 months because of respiratory issues, I was living in a NIGHTMARE. The building came in and duck taped the gaps under my sink (see photos), I even had to put electrical tape on the vents in my shower because it was blowing hot steamy cigarette smoke into my shower nightly.

I begged and begged and begged for help for months and there was “nothing they could do about it” to help me. If you ever decide to move into this building and exit right on the elevators onto the 5th floor you will be engulfed by this terrible smoke smell. Specifically unit 5J, I am warning you because I wish someone would have been honest and upfront with me - or at least tried to help me after the fact and no one did, do not fall victim to this unit, you will regret it immensely.

Good staff, issues fixed very quickly, apartment is good quality whole building is clean, in unit laundry in every unit.

Bit expensive, and street facing units experience disruptive noise from loud music, honking, and speeding cars at all times even 3:30 AM

lower rents to retain tenants