299 Albany Avenue,

Brooklyn, NY 11213

Great size space considering the rent at the time

My roommate and I left this apartment because the boiler was out for more than three months (June 2019 until we left in Sept 2019). We had no hot water for the duration and the landlord had no plan for ensuring heat during the winter. The issue occurred because the landlord installed a new gas boiler in the fall and failed to install a gas line. For a few months he piggybacked it on the neighbors’ gas line and gas bill, then took them off their *own* gas line for several more months. By the time the city got involved, a pipeline dispute kept a new line from being created for the boiler; however, the landlord refused to install an electric boiler or implement another solution, and there would’ve been no issue to begin with had he had the boiler appropriately installed to begin with. (Note that here “landlord” applies to the owner’s representative, his nephew(?) Jayson, who also claimed a broker fee despite going on to serve as the de facto landlord.) Jayson refused to agree to any kind of rent abatement. At the end of our time there he did not return any of our security deposit, saying we owed him money.

There was also a mouse problem. When we reported it to the super Emerald (Jayson’s cousin(?)), he laughed at us and told us it was New York and of course there were mice. He patched some holes in the floor but did nothing else. On a separate occasion he came into the apartment when we were out of town to install a new pipe and left a hole in the ceiling around the pipe which he never returned to repair.

There was also a problem with the garbage. The only building cans provided were rectangular and about ten inches wide—they could not fit a normal bag of kitchen trash. This meant we had to keep trash in our apartment until pickup day.

Fulfill your basic responsibilities to your tenants.