RUBs - This is a bullshit system to be added to your rent with. This is basically saying “on top of what you’re paying to use, you’re to pay what EVERYONE else in the building uses!” even if it’s divided up. I get fucked over every winter for example, because I use electric heaters in my apartment and nothing gas-related. I’m still smacked with $48 ~ $62 of usage, despite that. This raises my rent up and makes it variable.
No-Bite Management - Management who lets nearly everything go, despite them trying to sound strict. You may be in a bit of a rivalry with a neighbor who likes slamming things or having loud music, obviously breaking lease agreement, who makes you wonder why they’ve gotten away with it as long as they have. You record, you report but management does next to nothing. They tell you to your face that the only way they can move forward, is a police report. Now that kind of thing should be reserved for more escalated and involved cases, not something management could deal with when they were the ones who made up the terms of the lease agreement.
Pets - From experience, people are AWFUL with their pets. Mostly dogs, I’ve never seen anything go wrong with cats, unless the owners don’t care enough to let them run around until they’re kidnapped or ran over. But dogs, they just let them go and go with the barking. Not to mention the dog shit on the ground they refuse to pick up.
New York City here.
Made me realize that the civil servants/power companies in my area actually do their job.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an apartment where there were burn marks around the outlets, and I’ve been in some sketchy places
Eh I don’t know how often that is the case, depends on the building :P
At one point the roommates and I were living in a house in Williamsburg with the owner living upstairs above us. The owner bought the house a few years prior, apparently the original owner did all the electrical work himself. You could tell everything was wonky, most of the outlets weren’t grounded, many outlets were installed upside down, two bedrooms along with the kitchen and bathroom were on the same circuit so half the apartment would lose electricity whenever someone ran a hair dryer in one room along with the toaster in the kitchen. The building’s circuit breakers were downstairs in someone else’s basement apartment so we got to know our downstairs neighbor pretty well, haha.
I used to wonder how that house passed inspection or if NYC even does those type of inspections. Eventually the owner re-sold the house and we had to move so that was that. But I get the feeling there are tons of old houses in Brooklyn/Queens like that.