802 Beverley Road,

Brooklyn, NY 11218

this apartment is beautiful, no doubt. we lived on the top floor of the building and loved the space and character of the building. the neighborhood is nice, always had lovely neighbors, and the stoop is a great place to gather.

many areas of this home were in states of complete disrepair. holes and cracks in the 120 year old building were filled with steel wool and spray foam. we had mice issues that the landlord didn’t address and were only resolved after getting a cat to deter mice. if an appliance broke, the likelihood of any speedy repair was very low - in fact, it was written into the lease that we had no right to expect repairs of appliances from the landlord. the “renovations” to the apartment (including dividing the apartment to make bedrooms) were done shoddily, with cheap materials, and mostly completed by the landlord who claimed to be a contractor but certainly did not do work up to code.

the other reviews say it all. john hetherman preys mostly on young people, especially foreign students, who will be less likely to stand up for themselves and seek litigations for the many tenants laws he breaks. we were flawless tenants and i did many showings for him in other neighborhoods when necessary (which he only sometimes followed through on payment for). despite all this, he was uncommunicative at the end of our tenancy and we did not receive info about our security deposit until exactly 14 days after lease end (the legal limit for him to send back deposits). as we knew he did to many other tenants before us, he wrote a list of ridiculous things to charge us for and stole our entire security deposit. he even demanded another $1000 or so. he relies on tenants not seeing him through to small claims court, which usually means he wins because it’s impossible to get him for these things. i’ve truly never met a more evil person in the flesh, especially because he can be so charismatic when he wants to. i dream of a day when actual action can be taken against him (believe me, i’ve tried) but for now all i can do is add this review to the list and urge anyone renting from a John Hetherman to run and be prepared to seek litigation

do not buy anymore properties, since you can not be present to deal with them when you live in michigan and have no official super, just random tenants who get rent reductions to do you favors

beautiful beautiful space, thats literally it

everything was falling apart, the back gate consistently fell off the hinges, the front metal gate would not lock and often cut our hands as we tried to use it. dead rats filled the bike storage area and no one would come to remove them. additionally the plumbing failed and gallons of disgusting sewage filled water filled the unfinished basement, which we had to clean. we were also required to empty the boiler once a month or risk losing our heat, and if we did it wrong we were chastised by the owner. furthermore there were dozens of pieces of low quality furniture throughout the apartment that tenants were required to keep by the landlord. if tenants did not want to use them, the landlord required them to store them in the basement, which tenants were also paying rent on. these are just the worst issues, there were tons of other minor ones that are classic for any brooklyn apartment, including horrible drainage in the bathrooms, drafty windows, and more.


this is not to say anything about the landlord. at the time of our lease renewal we were told that our rent would be raised less than 400$ if we found people for the apartment upstairs. we found friends to fill the apartment. the day they signed the lease, with one month left on our lease, john hetherman told us he would not be renting the property for any less than a $1000 increase. when we disputed this, he refused to acknowledge that he said this. he also refused to allow our friends to back out of the upstairs lease. most of the tenants had no way to leave the apartment within the month, as we were anticipating staying for an additional year with an increase of less than $400. when we asked for extra time to leave the apartment, john hetherman legally threatened us, verbally harassed and intensely threatened us. he sent many prospective tenants to the apartment while several tenants had covid, and threatened to "make our lives miserable." the tenants decided to stay for one month past the end of the lease in order to make arrangements to leave, and john hetherman sent us a bill for $27000 AFTER keeping the security deposit. all of the charges were for minor issues like wall scratches of dust. he also charged exorbitant fees for damage to things like an ikea dresser or an old couch, which were already unusable when we moved in. after managing to get in touch with previous tenants who lived in the apartment, we realized that john hetherman had sent an IDENTICAL bill to them, down to the number of alleged damages to the apartment and damages to the furniture. we were able to get the same lawyer that they used to send him a cease and desist but it was one of the worst experiences of my life. he was also consistently racist and insulted the largely non-white neighbors over and over again.

renovate your apartment