FYI about building at 90 West Houston Street

We lived here for two years, up until Summer 2015. Overall, the location is great and the building isn't too bad for a NY apartment. The landlord is fairly responsive and tries to fix problems as they come up. However, here are the facts you might not otherwise learn: the building is very, very cold and heating bills (all electric) run into $600-$700 in the winter. After talking to neighbors in... [more]

We lived here for two years, up until Summer 2015. Overall, the location is great and the building isn't too bad for a NY apartment. The landlord is fairly responsive and tries to fix problems as they come up. However, here are the facts you might not otherwise learn: the building is very, very cold and heating bills (all electric) run into $600-$700 in the winter. After talking to neighbors in the building, this seems to be true in all the apartments. The roof was starting to leak when we lived there, so there would be water on the stairs, and at one point, our ceiling started to leak badly. They didn't do any long-term fixes on the roof beyond sealing the roof w/ tar in the summer. So, there is water-damage on the top floor and likely mold in the ceiling because that was never fixed. We complained several times, but where the landlord was responsive for small problems, that wasn't something they did anything about. Finally, beware of pipes freezing in the winter. We lost water for a week in December (which sucked, can't flush the toilet!) because pipes froze and it took the landlord a long time to fix the problem. We used to have to run across the street to use the bathroom. [less]