Garbage Chute

If the building cleans the chute regularly (which they should), they don't smell at all.

Stink-o-rama, and noise as the trash falls down the chute.

If the building maintains the room well, it'll be OK. But you better make sure - you'll be on the front lines if there's an insect or rodent infestation. Noise level depends on wall thickness, but you can test that. Don't forget that everybody on the floor will be using the chute every day.

The number of visits to the chute will depend on how many apartments the building has per floor. I'm on near a chute, and hear very little because there are few apartments. I find having to take only a few steps outside the door to get to a trash/recycling room one of the the convenient aspects of high-rise living--truly--it beats taking the trash to a room in the basement or curbside, or having to remember the days of the week for pick-up. Far worse than proximity to a garbage chute, is the sound of a closing elevator door. These open and close every time someone enters or leaves the floor and can cause much more sound aggravation.

Buildings that were designed with trash chutes generally place them far from apartment entry doors, so the main question has to do with soundproofing internally, and whether the chute is placed next to a LR or BR, back-to-back.

The incinerator chutes in prewar buildings that I can think of locate them near the service halls, not adjacent to any LRs or BRs, but near kitchens.

the issue is not with smell or noise, it's with vermin. Apartments next to garbage chute rooms always have more cockroaches and/or mice.

The vermin issue also depends on the building. Our old building had an exterminator visit every month to make sure we never had issues and we never did - so the trash rooms were fine. They are fine in our high rise now too because the building maintains them well.

I think all of the drawbacks entirely depend on the building.

It also depends on the nabe: if you're in Long Island City you'll be next to a trash chute located inside of a trash chute. Doesn't bode well for the future.

But no need to spray insecticide and rodenticide and manhattanpushouticide.

east side, west side, licide