640 West 139 Street,

Manhattan, NY 10031

I found Mavi by recommendation. My friends stayed in her units as well. I rented a room from her and stayed for 1.5 years. All the roommates were from Columbia Uni in the unit. Mavi does a great job with placement. She lives in the building and very responsive, helpful when needed.

The unit is cleaned up twice a month. Since we rent only a room, I know that the landlord has right to access the common areas to fix things however she always asked permission if they need to fix something in the rooms.

I had to break the lease and Mavi gave me chance to find a replacement and she helped me to find one so I got my security deposit back with no problem.
We all know and accept NYC is an old city, therefor construction and problems never end. Heat, hot water, pest problems happens all over the city. At the end of the day, what matters is how it is managed. Mavi does everything very professionally. I believe it is not easy to deal with students so I give her 5 star.

The super is very loud

washing machines in the basement / elevator

smell and noises

-Has an elevator
-Good live in super response
-Has laundry

-Building a bit old and could be better cleaned.

The building is okei, it would be great if it is cleaner.

Good location around restaurants and grocery stores

The landlord will run in and out of the apartment when she wants - gives no notice

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Nice Black/Latinx neighborhood, laundry in basement, two blocks from the 1 train, nearby lots of cafés, restaurants, beauty supply stores and an affordable grocery store across the road. Riverside state park is right behind the building.

My issues are with my landlord. TL;DR: Mavi doesn’t do her job until relentlessly pressured to. She is a controlling micro-manager, does not respect professional boundaries as a landlord, and tries to hold onto security deposits. Know your rights as a tenant.

Mavi has a history of being a piece of work to her tenants. The following issues are what happened to two of my friends (I’ll call them Friend A and B to keep anonymity). I’m going to go from worst to least concerning so that I can get to the point. I am going to refer to NYC Tenant Rights throughout

- Just over a week before moving out, Friend A found a bedbug in their room and immediately informed Mavi. NYC law states that landlords are responsible for bedbugs and should hire a professional exterminator to get rid of them. Instead, Mavi attempted to get rid of the bedbugs herself (which she admitted in writing over an email) and threatened to deduct the cost from Friend’s A security deposit. This is illegal.
Mavi told Friend A not to tell the other tenants about the bedbugs. NYC law states that landlords must inform current AND future tenants about any bedbug history. Mavi did not inform current tenants or me before I moved.
Mavi also tried to withhold Friend A’s security deposit because of damaged furniture.

- NYC law states that a landlord must send an itemized list of damages 14 days after the end of the lease if they want to deduct costs from a security deposit. Mavi did no such thing, but sent photos of damaged furniture to Friend A. Friend A took photos of their room before they left and can refute that they did not damage anything.

- Mavi tried to withhold Friend A’s security deposit again because they broke their sublease without finding a replacement tenant. Mavi’s subleases state that if a tenant moves out early they lose their security deposit unless they find another tenant to replace them. I was my friend’s replacement, which Mavi admitted to me over email. However, because I did not move into my friend’s exact room (I moved into a different room in the same apartment), Mavi forced Friend A to find another tenant to be the replacement. Mavi continuously rejected the other replacements Friend A brought forward.
After Friend A got a lawyer involved, Mavi agreed to consider me as Friend A’s replacement and to give back their security deposit. Instead, Mavi sent one dollar and told Friend A that she would send the rest of the deposit if they took down posts on Facebook Marketplace.

Now, here is my personal experience:

- Mavi does not understand basic professional boundaries as a landlord. She walks in whenever she wants without prior warning and will even perform maintenance with her husband late at night (like 10pm or 11pm). She is a controlling micro-manager, for example, she does not let her tenants have a key to the mailbox and comments about whether the dishes are washed. She is far too over-familiar, such as the time she commented on my roommate’s weight. I believe that Mavi preys on more inexperienced tenants like myself (first-time renters, students, people who have never been to NYC and just moved here etc) because she knows that they are likely to not know any better. These unnecessary comments and disregard of personal space can be considered as landlord harassment.

-Mavi also tried to hold onto my security deposit for as long as possible. I paid for the month of August, and my lease ended on August 31st but I planned to move out on August 19th. I asked Mavi to return my security deposit when I moved out and Mavi responded, verbatim, “It is not possible. Your lease ends August 31st. It is a very short notice.” I knew that this was pure nonsense because, according to NYC law, landlords must not commingle security deposits with their personal finances, so I asked what would prevent her from giving me back my deposit. Once pressed, Mavi said that she could give me back my money on August 20th.

-The amount of roaches that I saw and had to kill was ridiculous. Unfortunately, my room was next to the bathroom and the kitchen, so I had to buy roach killer spray and douse my room in order to stop roaches creeping in. Specifically, there was an infestation of roaches in the kitchen trash can which was clearly abnormal. I kept complaining to Mavi and she was unconcerned because she hired an exterminator, but he was clearly not doing his job effectively. After a few weeks I pressed Mavi to do more in person, and she conceded to spraying the kitchen herself. It turns out that there was a garbage leak in the trash can. Once pressed on the issue (again), the roach situation improved significantly.

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