310 East 89 Street,

Manhattan, NY 10128

The building is on a lovely tree lined street in a central location in the Upper East Side. I work in Midtown and it only takes me 17 minutes door to door. I live in a studio. It has great ceiling height, large windows and a fire escape. The unite has a washer/drier and a large bathroom.

It seems like everyone in the building has challenges with the management. We have had heating on and off throughout the winter as well as issues with the digital key system breaking down. There has also been big issues with mice in the building as well as the normal bugs. I have also had issues with the apartment flooding from the radiator, and there has been issues with the faucet and drain in the bathroom. What makes it challenging is mostly that the building management is not very proactive and the super is impossible to get a hold of and doesn't show up at the agreed time if at all.

The building is in a great location, and most units have a dishwasher and a washer-dryer. Most of the neighbors are nice.

This could be a very nice building, but it's not. Don't be fooled by the dishwashers and washer-dryers like I was. In less than a year, I’ve experienced mice, raw sewage, heat and hot water service interruptions, and flooding in my apartment. The building number, which is handwritten on a piece of paper, perfectly encapsulates the level of service and professionalism that you can expect if you move into this building, but you can read this review for more details if you like. Also, I highly recommend reading the reviews and open violations for all properties managed by this company and its principal. It’s very easy to do through this app. You will see that my review is not an exaggeration. As I write this, I am coming off of two days without hot water and can hear a mouse moving around in my kitchen (I saw one run from the washer-dryer to the dishwasher the other night). Management will not send an exterminator because the one with whom they have a contract is unavailable and they claim that per their contract they cannot engage other vendors. I emailed them six hours ago requesting an update and have not heard back. I have regretted my decision to take this place from day one. When I toured the building, I was told that someone from management would be onsite Monday through Friday. This was not at all true. No one from management showed up on move-in day. It took me two weeks to get a mailbox key and a week to get set up to use the intercom system. I had to contact the intercom company myself in order to get access. The cleaning staff come by two to three times a week. There is no office in the building, and therefore there is no one from management here Monday through Friday. There was no super when I moved in. There was a person who lives in Brooklyn who came to the building a couple of days a week to take out the trash and recycling, but there was no one available 24 hours a day anywhere close to the building who could address maintenance issues quickly. To my knowledge, there still isn’t. See below for more on this topic. My lease started June 12, but for personal reasons I didn't move in until August. This means that management had ample time to inspect the apartment and make sure it was ready for move-in. At least as late as June 18, there was still construction equipment in the apartment, and the apartment was covered in dust and debris (see the photo). Once I moved in, I was unable to use my shower for two weeks because it wouldn't drain (there was no pitch to the shower floor, so water would pool around my feet and run out of the shower). The second week was because the original tiler had gone out of the country. Rather than hire someone else to retile the shower, management waited for the same person who botched it the first time to come back. I had to shower at my ex's place despite paying rent here. Then I had to have the shower adjusted by one of the contractors because the water did not get hot. My rent was not prorated for this partial constructive eviction. There was (and still is) a very large amount of paint and permanent marker ink on the floors, and there is some grout or cement stuck to the kitchen counter. There is grout all over both bathroom floors, so no matter how thoroughly you clean them, they will always look dirty. There were entry points for rodents throughout the apartment (with one behind the radiator being big enough for an opossum to fit through), and the entire building has a persistent mouse problem. Some entry points have been sealed by an exterminator, but mice continue to enter my apartment and others. A former tenant complained on OpenIgloo about roaches, and while I have seen a few, my experience is that the mice far outnumber them. The heat was off for a week in April despite cold weather. When I complained, management encouraged me to call 3-1-1 (most likely because they know that that won’t do anything). They even sent me a photo of a sign encouraging tenants to call 3-1-1, but I never actually saw that sign posted despite going in and out of the building several times that day. When I was locked inside (yes, inside) my apartment on the Sabbath and no one from management was available, I had to call a locksmith after the person who took out the trash was more than two hours late showing up and was unable to fix the lock (which management initially said was a “WD-40 problem”). They also asked me why I didn’t just leave through the basement, as if it weren’t an unfinished, poorly lit rodent and mosquito breeding ground that was often blocked by stacks of trash and recycling. I guess they forgot that I was never given a key to my basement door and would have had to leave my apartment unlocked. Management offered to cover HALF the cost of the locksmith because, according to them, the locksmith overcharged me. This was despite the fact that it was their failure to provide a super within 200 feet of the building that put me in such a desperate position. It was literally their fault that I had to call a locksmith, and yet they didn’t think they should cover the full cost. To make matters worse, the manager decided that MLK, Jr. Day was the time to argue with me about this. Had management sent someone to assist me before sundown, I would not have had to call a locksmith in the first place, so I didn't understand why I should have to pay for their failure to provide a super. I guess I was supposed to price-compare locksmiths while my dog held his bladder and bowls… As a result of the Great Locksmith Debacle of 2022, I begged management to provide a 24-hour contact for all tenants. It’s unclear to me why they hadn’t already done this when it’s required by law and is also just common sense. They provided the number of someone whom I’ve never seen in the building (Omar) and call him the super. He was not available until the following day when I called him to remove a dead mouse from my kitchen. The other reviews on OpenIgloo mention a super, but that super left the building before I moved in. Previous reviews are referring to the former super Jimmy, who left before I moved in. Hurricane Ida resulted in a large amount of water in the lower level of my apartment because there was a nine-inch hole in the back of the basement and no barrier to fill the rodent superhighway of a gap between my basement door and the floor. Management is aware that there is a sewer backup problem (their recommended renter's insurance policy includes a rider specifically for sewer backups) but did not disclose it to me before I signed my lease. When the sewer backed up, I had the distinct pleasure of getting raw sewage in my bathroom and bedroom. Later, when workers were renovating a unit upstairs, they burst a pipe and sewage leaked down my shower wall, getting on some of my cleaning supplies. When I asked to have my cleaning supplies replaced, I was told that management wouldn't replace items damaged by "unexpected" sewage leaks. There are so many layers to that, including (1) I guess they actually do expect some sewage leaks, (2) once again, they messed up and I had to pay for it, (3) wow, how embarrassingly cheap and inconsiderate, and (4) gross. Before the cold months, management told me that the baseboard heaters in the basement would work. Of course they didn't, and I had to run a space heater, incurring VERY high electricity bills. Management did have an HVAC unit installed in the basement, for which I am grateful, but as with the other vendors they've used, the people who did the installation made a mistake and had to come back to fix it. There is a digital intercom system that would be great if tenants’ accounts didn’t expire every month or two. Management is responsible for renewing our access and has forgotten to renew mine several times–including once when I was waiting for refrigerated medication to be delivered via UPS. That was fun. Management's favorite response to any tenant complaint is "no other tenants have complained about it." I’ve actually made a drinking game out of it. And if you ever call them out for anything, they will say that you have an “attitude” and that they should be treated with “human dignity,” which is truly amazing because they will just let feces get on your property, offer to pay for half of the cost of a locksmith when you are locked in your apartment due to their own failure to do their jobs, leave you without heat for a week when it’s cold, etc. I guess we have different definitions of “human dignity.” If you don't have standards, you can probably survive in this place and be excited about having appliances and being in a convenient location. If you don’t like mice, service interruptions, and slow responses to maintenance complaints, save yourself the headache and look elsewhere.

Do your job. Address maintenance issues in a timely and professional manner. Follow applicable laws. Hire a super who lives within 200 feet of the building.

The super-Jimmy is so awesome and kind. He works really hard.

Roach issue. Trash storage in lobby could have been better. Some very disruptive neighbors.

nice and quiet area. neighbors were fine.

i lived in a duplex on the first floor, so one of the floors was technically a basement unit that had a door connecting it to the hallway where the super took out the trash. there were always cockroaches, both dead and alive, somewhere in that apartment. appliances were old and clearly falling apart. the shower was basically a dark hole. the super would flat out tell me no when i asked for his assistance with things.

get a new super