Landlord Does Not Care
Pros
Great neighbors, super close to subway, supermarkets, laundromats. Great neighborhood with awesome small businesses.
Cons
The landlord, Ben Vardi, is not only unhelpful but exceptionally cruel as a landlord. He part-time lives out of the country and almost exclusively accessible via email (and most of his correspondence is AI-generated empty promises to do better). He will not make sure trash is consistently addressed. He will ask for rent early frequently, which makes it come across that he cannot afford this building. Whatever he is asking for rent is way too much for what this place is. It is not maintained or cared about. While we were moving out, Ben Vardi demanded we have our unit up to an absurd standard of cleanliness/tidiness as prospective tenants came to tour our space. We had boxes all around our home because we were actively packing and was very hostile about the state of our apartment (not sure if he knows this, but moving is a very chaotic process. We weren't living in filth, but it was not staged to his liking because most of our belongings were in boxes). He was aggressive about scheduling showings and generally had a bad attitude. He is someone who leads with his emotions and does not communicate in a productive or kind way. Before officially moving out, we provided Ben with the date of move out and the COI from our movers and he claimed that it was not enough coverage should we have any damage to the property. Mind you, this was a professional moving company and they have never once been asked by a landlord/property management company for more coverage. For a building as old and poorly maintained as his, it's genuinely amazing that he thought his building warranted coverage over $1 million dollars. After we moved, Ben sent an aggressive email threatening a lawsuit because we moved without revising the COI to add more coverage. I am very certain he was retaliating because we did not want to renew our lease. He cited things that he claimed were in the lease (they weren't) to scare us we ultimately had to get our own lawyer involved, who then told him to stop harassing us, connect her with his lawyer (he doesn't have one), and provide any proof of damage (there was none). Simply put, Ben Vardi is on a power trip -- which is hilarious to me given the poor state of the building and the lack of care and support he provides. He is rude, lazy, and incompetent in every single way. So much so that even AFTER our lease ended he started harassing my old roommate via email threatening eviction -- turns out he sent this email to the wrong person. He's so bad at his job that he doesn't even know who his own tenants are. I wouldn't recommend him or this building to my worst enemy. He will try to sound like he knows what he's talking about, but at the end of the day he's throwing anything at the wall and hoping it sticks. If you are proceeding with a rental agreement with Ben Vardi, READ YOUR LEASE THOROUGHLY AND KNOW YOUR RIGHTS AS A TENANT. He will absolutely, undeniably try to manipulate you if you do not know the law.
Advice to the owners
Use your tenant's rent money on bettering the building instead of going abroad every few weeks. You are lazy, clearly hurting financially, and not equipped to be a landlord. My biggest piece of advice to you? Find a new career.
Smelly Bug Infested Apartment
Pros
Nice area, very close to the subway and supermarkets. Upstairs is okay, basement is not.
Cons
smell indoors bug infestation Property owner does not resolve issues quickly
Advice to the owners
Clean and regularly inspect apartment/building for bugs/rodents
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