257 W 116 St,

Manhattan, NY 10026

Large Apartment, No Street Noise, Decent Water Pressure. The live-in super is very nice and always willing to help in any way he can. Never had a package stolen.

RATS! So, so many rats. They are in all the walls, they run under our feet as we are taking a shower, and we hear them skittering across the ceiling. We hear them at all times of day in every room of the apartment. We even had one rat in our apartment during our one year lease. The noises of them running behind the walls were so loud it would wake us up at night.
Cockroaches. The day we moved in we were met with the most massive cockroach infestation I could have ever imagined. Roaches at all stages of life crawling over every surface in the apartment. We counted over 100 sightings in a single day. It took several months and regular visits from the exterminator to get a handle on the problem, but eventually during the winter the roaches became more manageable and sightings went down to 1-2 per week.
Heat. The boiler system is programmed to turn the radiators on once the outside temperature dips below 60 degrees. Once they’re on, they stay on no matter the temperature inside or outside the apartment. The heaters remained on throughout the entire month of May. We had to blast the AC to bring the temperatures down. There is no way to control the radiators. In the coldest months of the winter the heaters do not work well enough. It was regularly 60-65 degrees inside the apartment overnight. Throughout our time here it was always either below 68 degrees or above 75 degrees inside the apartment. It was a rare day when we felt comfortable.
Disgusting Smells - I don’t know the cause of the smell in the building. My theory is a mix of wet garbage from the garbage chute and trash in the basement as well as dead rats and rat excrement in the walls. It could also be due to the multiple water “emergencies” resulting in unexpected water shutoffs we experienced regularly throughout our lease. During wet and rainy weather the smell is at its worst.
Management - Choice Management is a very poorly run company. My emails and calls often went unanswered and ignored. We were not given keys upon move in, it took over a week to get a key fob to enter the building. We were not properly communicated with regarding move in procedures. Equally when we moved out we were met with radio silence. We were not given any move-out instructions and all emails and calls were unanswered. It took longer than 14 days to receive my security deposit, and only after I had to call multiple contacts within the company to get a hold of anyone.
Tenants - this building is home to a large community of delivery drivers. They keep their bikes in the hallways chained to the stairwell, and impeding the building entrance. Anywhere from 3-10 bikes can be found parked in the hallways at any given time. These tenants have ignored all requests from management to remove their bikes.
Safety - any time you open the building’s front door there are two or three people waiting to follow you in. Many of the people living in or visiting this building do not have keys and either wait or demand to be let in by people who do. If they are not let in, they will break the handle or pick the lock so they can gain entrance. The front door lock was replaced several times throughout our 1 year lease due to this problem.

I don’t know your options, but if it were up to me, I would have the building completely demolished. The rat situation is out of control.

The apartments themselves are pretty ok and have a fair amount of space.

-constant bug infestations
-water goes off with no warning
-constant broken front door with people coming in and out
-rats jumping behind the walls
-poor trash management