Worst landlord I've ever had by miles
Pros
My neighbors were mostly nice.
Cons
The landlord is awful. He failed to disclose that the apartment was rent stabilized. He also forced me to pay rent in cash and often wanted to come pick it up during the work day, when I was in Manhattan at my job. When I refused to take time off work to pay rent, he asked me to leave cash on my kitchen table. When I refused to do that (because it seemed insane) and left a check instead, he screamed at me. We both knew he couldn't legally make me pay rent in cash, so he relied on intimidation and the threat of retaliation instead. The building is falling apart. I complained multiple times that my bathroom ceiling was leaking, and the landlord said it was just the recent rainstorms (?? It shouldn't happen anyway, and I was on the bottom floor). Eventually it collapsed, broke my shelving units, and destroyed a rug just outside of the bathroom. He sent his son over to patch the ceiling, but refused to send someone to clean the disgusting, rotten mess off of my floor, and refused to reimburse me for the damage the ceiling had caused. Older and wiser now, I regret not talking to a housing lawyer. He had also illegally subdivided my unit which he didn't tell me when I moved in, and it meant that I shared a mailbox with someone else AND couldn't get internet of my own, because the one ISP in the neighborhood was already assigned to someone else with my unit number. This became an enormous headache. During the pandemic, when attempting to work from home, I got set up with NYC Mesh for DIY internet that required an antenna on the roof and an ethernet cable running down into my apartment. After I complained about some of the living conditions, my landlord CUT THE ETHERNET CABLE in retaliation. I was clean and yet had a chronic roach infestation; the landlord ignored my complaints and blamed me. My windows opened onto the backyard (I was not allowed access) and my landlord and his son were frequently in the backyard doing incredibly loud construction work (using a table saw??) while I tried to work from home during the pandemic. When I politely asked them to do work at other times, he refused. I've lived in NYC for 13 years and have NEVER had issues like this with any other landlord. The rent might be a deal, but I would avoid.
Advice to the owners
SHAPE UP.