Buyer Beware

We only lived here for 1 months and had multiple issues in what became an unlivable apartment. The broker (Rob) glossed over the fact that the apartment sits directly atop of a night club "hookah lounge" that is open until 4am most weeknights, even though their hours of operation states otherwise. The club (Babel) caused a constant smell of hookah and cigarette smoke into our apartment and... [more]

We only lived here for 1 ½ months and had multiple issues in what became an unlivable apartment. The broker (Rob) glossed over the fact that the apartment sits directly atop of a night club "hookah lounge" that is open until 4am most weeknights, even though their hours of operation states otherwise. The club (Babel) caused a constant smell of hookah and cigarette smoke into our apartment and obnoxious loud music throughout all hours of the night. The music was so loud that it vibrated our bed and we could hear the DJ as if he was in the room next door. In addition, we did not have hot water in our shower, something that should be a basic necessity when renting an apartment. All these issues were communicated clearly to the landlord (Al) but he was unresponsive to our emails and calls, had slow response times for urgent matters, and ultimately did not make any of these repairs. We started to log times that we had cold shower water, smelled smoke and heard loud music under the NYHPD R&R’s. We also logged reports with 311 to help jumpstart some urgency into our nightmare living situation, but Al continued his negligence. From everything that already occurred in this nightmare living situation, I came home one night in complete and utter shock to find my ceiling caved in due to severe water damage. What’s worse, the landlord knew of this issue beforehand but did not think to contact me. I had $3,000 in damages to my electronics and have had to go through an arduous insurance claims process to replace my personal belongings. We asked to break our lease and the landlord begrudgingly agreed but demanded he keep our security deposit even though we had no wrong doing and he could not reasonably rent out the apartment in the condition that it was in anytime soon. Al didn’t even come see the damages in person and only agreed to make the repairs after we had moved out. This was by far the worst living situation I have ever been in. We came home stressed, annoyed, and frustrated out of the lack of help we received and respect that was shown to us. Throughout our time in this awful apartment the landlord, Al was aloof, hard to reach, and not at all concerned with our living situation troubles. He is the textbook definition of a slumlord who does not take responsibility for his buildings many shortcomings and doesn’t seem to care about the safety of his tenants. He was a nightmare to work with throughout all our struggles and I would not recommend renting from him in any capacity. I urge you not to fall into the same trap we did and to stay far away from 131 Avenue C, Camhi NYC Realty and Avenue C Partners LLC. [less]