Good day-to-day management, scummy rental tactics
Pros
- building was clean and appliances were new - mini AC splits worked well for temp control and were energy efficient - water pressure is great - landlord’s son Kevin is mostly nice and very responsive to 99% of our issues - neighborhood/block are beautiful and quiet
Cons
The landlord’s other son Richard Wong was a total slimeball in getting us to sign a lease here. Argued hard for us to sign an 18 month lease ASAP (so he could get a higher broker’s fee from his dad, of course) and then kept pushing our move-in date further away. I know you can never trust a broker, but at signing he mentioned that “the landlord” (aka his father Dennis) was very fair about increases and never raises the rent beyond 3-5% per year. Lo and behold, we get a random call from Kevin close to the end of our lease saying “we’ve promised your apartment to a relative for $800 more per month” which was a 23% rent increase. He hadn’t send us a lease renewal or mentioned anything about a rent increase for us, simply told us that he’d already “given” our apartment away while we were still there and wanted to stay. I think he figured out that he’d be breaking the good faith law (where they can’t increase your rent more than ~8% without a good reason) so he quickly called back and said that a relative would be moving in. We mentioned what Richard told us and Richard, panicked because his landlord daddy got mad, called us and insisted he never said anything about a 3-5% rent increase. Neither of them put any of this in writing because they’re shady and 100% knew they were breaking the good faith law and never sent us a lease renewal by the deadline. we just moved out instead of dealing with this. A few months later we saw the apartment get relisted at $500 higher on StreetEasy. They did the same thing to our downstairs neighbors who ended up moving out too. So we enjoyed living there but don’t expect that they’ll let you renew your lease. No mailbox or way for USPS delivery to get in the building so mail gets shoved under the front door and put into a communal box where everyone can see/steal your mail. This is illegal too and Kevin never fixed it. The building has a mouse problem and Kevin didn’t want to do more than send his useless, condescending repairman until I sent him a picture of a dead mouse we caught in a trap. Then he started sending exterminators. But he still insisted that we were the only ones with mice (even though our neighbors mentioned having them too). Laundry is expensive ($3.50 coin-op only for each washer or dryer cycle) and the dryer barely works. Kevin refused to fix this and said that I was drying too many things, even though the dryer couldn’t even dry a load of three towels.
Advice to the owners
Kevin grow a backbone, Richard stop being a scummy slimeball, and Dennis you have enough money with all of your rentals so do you really need to be so greedy?
Amazing apartment, old building
Pros
Great apartment, friendly neighbors
Cons
Old building, noisy
Advice to the owners
None, he is great
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