240 Winthrop Street,

Brooklyn, NY 11225

Heat for the most part is good. The landlord is very responsive, if he’s not around his son or the super usually is. Most of the time if I have a small issue it gets resolved within a week. I will give him credit that when I discovered I had bed bugs in January 2019, it was handled immediately. The bed bugs came from an outside location, not from anyone in the building. Everyone is polite and keeps to themselves. There are cameras in the lobby and in front of the building. I heard some people got packages stolen by children in the building and the camera picked it up, so that’s good. The landlord will notify you if you have a package and it’s been there for more than 24 hours. If you ask him to hold your package, he will. Also, when I had a foot injury and I could barely walk his son brought my packages to my door, which I appreciated since I have a 4 flight walk up.

There are no elevators. If you need physical accessibility support this building isn’t a fit for you. Even if you live on the first floor the entrance to the building are four stairs and no ramp. The landlord is frugal. He puts quick fixes on things. I kept having a mold problem in my bathroom, it came back 3 times, and it took a very long time for the landlord to send someone get rid of it. I still believe the mold is inside the wall, but I just leave my bathroom window open all the time so the mold doesn’t surface. I currently have a leak around the wood of two of my windows in the apartment. The landlord knows about it, but nothing has been done—it’s been a few months now. I was told by the super it’ll get fixed in the spring. The landlord doesn’t use an exterminator, you have to maintain pest control yourself for the most part. If you tell him about any pest problems he’ll give you something store bought. I have purchased stuff from hard ware stores that maintains pest control for myself. The building is old so you will hear and sometimes feel loud sounds from other apartments. The neighbors above me have a child and the child makes a lot of noise all day from 7:30am to sometimes 9:30pm. There’s been times the noise is so loud items shake in my apartment. I told my neighbors and the landlord multiple times. It’s gotten somewhat better. I asked him to tell them to get rugs, but he said he can’t tell them that. I have lived in a building where the landlord told my dad and I to buy rugs for making way less noise than my neighbors do, but whatever. Additionally, I was advised to get ear plugs for when I sleep, because the child would wake me each day before 8am running in the bedroom right above my head. If you’re sensitive to sound and you move here be sure to live on the top floor or make sure you don’t live under anyone with a child or you won’t have much peace. The tenant before me put down a cheap plastic tile in my bathroom and it’s coming apart and I’m pretty sure something is growing underneath it. The landlord won’t pay to have me get rid of it, because I chose to take the apartment with the tile like that.

Band-aids to issues like mold will cost you more money in the long run. Because the building is so old I recommend that it’s written into the lease that tenants have to be mindful of sound of people below them. You can write into a lease that tenants with children have to get rugs if noise complaints ensue.