KungPowThinking

Experienced something brand new today. It didn’t kill me, but I doubt it’s made me any stronger.

I live in a duplex in Manhattan with a roommate. It’s not luxury, but it’s definitely not cheap. We pay enough money to have some reasonable expectations about the quality of the building and general maintenance. We’ve lived there for about five months now, and have had nothing but problems. When we moved in, the unit had just been remodeled – new floors, recessed lighting, new kitchen, new bathrooms, the works. It looked good, and things seemed to work. However it turns out that it seems to have been remodeled by a bunch of special needs elementary students on a field trip. Btw, I really don’t mean for this post to denigrate children with special needs. In all honesty they probably could have done a much better job than the assholes who worked on my apt. In fact, I think my most recent apt manager qualifies as special needs, and he is remarkably able to hold down a job and occasionally answer his work-related mobile phone all by his-self.

Back to the story.

In the five months we’ve lived in this apt we have noticed the following:

• Front door buzzer won’t turn off
• There is no way to get out of the basement (where the laundry room is) when the elevator doesn’t work because there are no stairs
• The dryers are consistently broken (reported to super)
• Pipes bang so loud that it sounds like a marching band is playing upstairs (reported multiple times to management)
• Water leaks from the base of my roommates toilet and from an exposed hot water pipe in his bathroom (reported multiple times to management)
• Water leaks from radiators (reported multiple times to management)
• Heat does not come on consistently (reported to management and there have been violation notices)
• Water leak caused by mis-installation of valves caused the ceiling of my bathroom and part of my bedroom to cave in and soak my entire room (obviously reported)
• When they fixed the ceiling they never finished, mis-installed a hatch in the ceiling recommended by the plumber in case there’s a future problem, and left me to clean up the mess
• New neighbors have complained of mice (reported to management)
• One window does not open or close properly
• Numerous state and city notices near the post boxes stating violations including at least 1 for heat and another for waste disposal
• I have seen at least 3 different building managers and multiple supers since moving in. I am certain that no one in the building knows who to contact if there’s a problem
• This morning the basement of the building flooded with sewage (SHIT) and my shower drain backed up putting sewage (SHIT) in my shower (reported to management)

OK did you read the last bullet point? If not, please read it again.

At this point I am so angry I don’t even know what to do.