261 14 Street,

Brooklyn, NY 11215

View was nice
“Rooftop” access was nice (no official access but everyone went up there”
Quiet street

Where do I begin. This building literally caused me psychological trauma. I still flinch when I see a roach because I’m traumatized.

Building was absolutely crawling with mice in the winter and roaches in the summer. I’d come home and purposely stomp my feet really loud to scare them off before I turned on the lights, they were always crawling up and down the walls. Sometimes I’d reach for the sponge in the kitchen and there would be roaches on it. It’s a perfect breeding ground because it’s so hot. When I moved out roaches were crawling from under my bed it was so bad. It sounds like I’m a slob. But I swear I’m super clean the place is just infested. I think I had heat stroke during the heat wave because of how hot this building gets.

Then, in the winter, when you think it can’t get worse, it does. Saw a mouse at least twice a week. Had to throw away a lot of food because they would get into it. Heat doesn’t work. Seriously. I’m not being dramatic. I have a photo of it being 32 degrees in our apartment one time. I called the landlord who takes forever to send his repair guy and deems nothing an emergency. Finally someone came out and “fixed” the radiator. 2 days later the top blew off the radiator he fixed, causing steam to fill the room at midnight. I cannot make this up. I sent him a video of the water damage and he said “wow that sucks” I’ll never forget sitting in a puddle of water in the heart of winter in that apartment crying.

The bathroom was lovely. (Not.) the shower head was facing the wall in the middle of the tub. I don’t know if you can envision that but it just wasn’t normal. Your knees touched the wall when you sat on the toilet. The plumbing was awful 1 out of every 3 times it clogged.

We wrote down every misdemeanor we encountered, and captured photo evidence out of fear we’d need to take him to court one day. After a few weeks of texting and calling, we finally got our security deposit back. In which he took off for the ceiling (which we had been flagging needs repairs for months and wasn’t our fault) and Gatorade he bought on my dime. Classic.

The location is good and that’s about it. The price is not worth the emotional trauma. Save yourself.

put some real work into your apartment building or just demolish it at this point

Nice neighbors, rooftop access (the landlord says we're not supposed to go up there, but everyone does), a minimal amount of pre-war charm

The landlord, Perry/Parrie/Parveen Chopra, is absolutely awful. We have no super (live-in or otherwise), which is illegal. The building is wired really poorly so the fuse boxes get overloaded easily and sometimes in the summer the electricity will go out if you run multiple A/Cs when it's super hot out. It's absolutely overrun with roaches and mice. I actually saw a rat in my apartment once and I don't even live on the ground floor. The landlord sends an exterminator to spray for roaches once a month when we beg for it, but it never helps. He is extremely stingy with repairs and always opts for the cheapest "solution" to everything, so nothing really gets fixed. He also steals people's security deposits when they move out (this has happened to several tenants I know). Please do not move to this building!

Sell your building to a responsible landlord