hello!!! it’s been long enough since i’ve written you all that substack has started sending me emails with titles like “4 creative ideas to revive your substack” that were probably generated with AI. (spoiler: they are not creative ideas!)
i have been busy moving, a thing that is unbelievably stressful in nyc, and also a thing i did less than a year ago. but we had to get out fast because we realized just how bad our bad landlord was.
the apartment itself was the top two floors of a brownstone, and we got a bad vibe from the broker (who was unspeakably rude to me in initial text conversations, and also made some really weird comments about me being pregnant when we saw her in person) but the apartment was big and seemed nice enough, so we pushed through. the apartment was furnished when we looked at it because it had been being used as an airbnb, and the broker told us it wasn’t a problem that we didn’t want his weird, cheap furniture.
we knew he was bad basically the minute we signed the lease, which we did just via a bare PDF, no docusign or anything. he also got half the information incorrect, notably, the end date on the lease. we asked for updates, and he said “he made them” but never sent them to us for us to initial. on the day we were supposed to take occupancy, he had neglected to remove any of the weird, bad furniture, which led to us delaying our move for a day while he got a pretty careless crew to move all the furniture into the downstairs apartment, which we’d been told had been rented but clearly had not been. the downstairs apartment remained empty for our 10 month tenure. they damaged the ugly wallpaper on the way out.
he had also neglected to … install mailboxes (?!?!) so we didn’t have a way to receive mail for the first few weeks. i kept bothering the landlord about it, and finally put my foot down and said, “we need a mailbox by tomorrow. you are legally required to provide us with a way to collect mail.” he seemed VERY surprised about that legal requirement.
we moved in mid-july, and besides the mailbox hiccup, we started settling in. there was many months of trash in the garbage bins in the tiny courtyard, which were now our responsiblity to put on the curb. he hadn’t given us any instructions on when/how to do that, but the neighbors were very helpful. there were some drug dealers who operated right outside our place, though in general they didn’t bother us. (although at least once one of their clientele barfed in our trash can which was extremely gross!!)
the place had clearly been flipped quickly and cheaply — for instance, the shower faucet had been installed incorrectly, so the hot/cold water were reversed, and the kitchen cabinets didn’t close. there was also a lot of obvious wear and tear from being an airbnb, the baseboard heaters and the hardwood floor were all kind of jacked up. he also had horrendous taste in both light fixtures and wallpaper. but things were ok.
then, in early september, we came back from a week in the pacific northwest to find that our hot water was broken. it went out on a friday, which was a problem because he’s an observant jew and hadn’t given us anyone to contact in the case of an emergency on the sabbath. we tried contacting him anyways, but resigned ourselves to having a weekend without hot water. it was a very hot september, so having a cold shower wasn’t the worst, but it wasn’t great.
it’s very important to sort out heat and hot water situations in rentals — it’s one of the things the city takes very seriously. so imagine our surprise when we finally got in contact with him on sunday and he said he’d try to have someone out by monday. um, no sir, that’s not how this works!!!! but we had just moved the month before, we were clearly his only tenant, and we were still thinking we would want to stay for as long as possible, since moving in NYC is such a nightmare. so we didn’t report him to 311, and tried to work with him.
he hired the world’s shittiest (probably cheapest) plumber. the hot water tank broke multiple times in the next few weeks, and the plumber would not show up, or show up hours late, and then leave without confirm he’d fixed it. the landlord kept acting like an incompetent baby with no agency in the situation. it made me feel so angry and helpless that it actually triggered my ptsd. finally, i had a very direct conversation with him where i told him if it wasn’t fixed by the next day i was reporting him to the city. he got very mad because he was “buying [me] a new heater for 5k!” as if i cared that he had to spend money to do his basic job. i just started repeating over and over “legally, you are required to provide heat and hot water every day. every day. legally required.” he kept arguing with me, and eventually hung up. lol. it did get fixed the next day.
so at this point, things became stressful because the day-to-day was FINE but we knew if anything happened he would be a nightmare to deal with. and since the house was basically falling apart around us, it was only a matter of time before something else went wrong. and more stuff of course did go wrong. for instance, it turned out there was an unlocked hatch into the basement that some folks were squatting in (one guy hassled me when i went outside, left a ton of trash in our yard, and was stealing packages from us and our neighbors). the windows and doors weren’t well-set in their frames, so during the winter the heat leaked out and the floor my bedroom/office was on was impossible to keep warm, but i could only turn the heat up so much because the top floor would got incredibly hot.
at some point, we got curious and started looking up him and the apartment and learned a series of things:
the building is actually zoned as a single room occupancy (SRO) building, which is a form of affordable housing (meaning it’s rent stabilized, although we were not paying rent stabilized prices)
it had been converted without the city’s knowledge, ie, illegally, after the landlord bought it
it had not been registered with the housing presevation and development (hpd) office
there was no certificate of occupancy, meaning that the house is not habitable.
anyways all of this is bad and illegal!!!! we stopped paying rent and moved out as soon as possible (the lawyer we retained suggested we stay and just not pay rent for as long as we want, but the apartment also did not have two means of egress, meaning it was a fire hazard, so the city could actually give us a vacate order at any time if they knew we were living there!!!!)
it is sort of nuts to think about how much power is in the hands of landlords, even when the law is really clearly on our side. the lawyer we retained told us we’d probably win a lawsuit, if we wanted to pursue it, and could potentially get some to all of our paid rent back with damages — it was a real slam dunk of a case. but despite that, it would probably take 5-10 years in the court system, where we would rack up lawyer’s fees, and then even when it was ruled in our favor, we’d probably have to sue him to get payment. it’s just Not Worth it for normal folks like us, and so we had a real bad time, the landlord suffered no damages, and is ready to do the same thing to other unsuspecting tenants. (the apartment is back up on streeteasy, although i did just flag it for removal.)
anyways. we’re in a new place now and it’s actually really amazing and lovely. i feel so much less stress, and actually feel safe and comfortable in the new space, and bought some plants. the vibes are much chiller, our we have some really cool neighbors, and we live above a grocery store which is such an incredible thing to help with what continues to be the hardest problem in the world, feeding myself each and every day.
debris
as soon as we actually moved into our new place we planned and executed a trip to chicago. i’d never been to chicago just to hang out! we went to kasama, an absolutely incredible filipino restaurant for lunch, took an architectural boat tour, went to the lake, and just in general had a great time.
i’m going to my grandma’s 97th birthday party tomorrow. can you imagine living to be 97???? i am already so tired of feeding myself and i’m only turning 40 this year!
no one get worried about me, i love to eat and usually DO manage to feed myself. we’ve already been cooking at home much more often, i think because it is just SO gosh darn convenient to live above a grocery.
i’m a bit mournful that plucky never got to live in this apartment. we have really great sunbeams, she would have loved them.
peach season has started! i got some at the farmer’s market this morning and they smell so incredible.
AI is not sentient! it’s not even close! all it can do is spit out guesses about stuff based on the data it is trained on. (some of my non-technical friends have expressed this worry, so just wanted to clear that up)
the bachelorette is back! i am watching! there are THREE men named k/caleb and one of them is a professional wrestler!!!! i think it will be a good season.
reading!
currently:
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky
this book came up in a bunch of articles recently about things like the effects of AI in our world, so i decided to give the book itself a whirl. it is quite good although going slowly, and i keep getting distracted by other things.
finished:
Future Tense Fiction: Stories of Tomorrow, anthology
a cool book of short sci fi stories that explore different ways techology could shape our lives and relationships. i read about it in an academic article about AI, and basically it was commissioned to try to explore different scifi futures besides “the AIs take over and kill us all” lol. it’s good! cw: murder, violence, domestic abuse
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai
i really dislike the real true crime genre, but apparently i am fascinated with fictional true crime. this could be uhhh because real true crime feels really irresponsible and sometimes dangerous, whereas fictional true crime reckons with the danger and the messiness that is happening behind the scenes. paul wrote about it in his newsletter, and as per usual, it was an interesting and thoughtful, albeit stressful read. cw: murder, sexual assault, abuse
Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison
my banned book book club read this one, and we were all completely flummoxed about why it was banned. then someone looked it up and it’s because the protagonist references a handful of times an early sexual experience he had with another boy. and some grown ass woman decided that meant the book is pedophilic?!?!?! there are truly some folks with brain worms out there. anyways it was pretty good, and had a very tidy, happy ending which honestly felt great, if a little contrived. cw: homophobia, racism
Jackie's Wild Seattle by Will Hobbs
this is a very cute ya book about some kids who have to go stay with their uncle for a summer and end up living and working at an animal rescue center. they get up to some good hijinks and rescue lots of animals!
A Country You Can Leave by Asale Angel-Ajani
this book was really well written and i am glad i read it but damn is it also very sad and upsetting. the mom in it a real piece of work. cw: abuse, racism, ODing, sexual assault, bad mom
All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung
i have gotten really interested in transracial adoption stories partially because they seem like one of the more complicated decisions a person could make. i really enjoyed chung’s memoir about uncovering the real story behind her adoption, and trying to square the story she had been told to the truth that is ultimately revealed to her. cw: racism, abuse
The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake
the next in this atlas series which seems to be increasibly posing the question: “is magic just a form of depression?” i wouldn’t say i enjoy this series particularly, but i guess i’m interested enough to see what happens in the end so i’ll sally forth and read the next one. cw: alcoholism, violence
Trust by Hernan Diaz
friends, i abandoned this one! the description says it is a “brilliant literary puzzle” and maybe it is but i missed the part where i understood it was a puzzle, and so it was just a confusing mess. but it won a pulitzer, so this is probably a “me” problem.
goodness me, i am just realizing i did not drink any coffee today and this newsletter is soooo long. sorry it was just focused around that landlord thing (although if you want more stories about how terrible it was, please email me and i will tell you more!!)
love you all, so much.
davida
What an absolutely unhinged situation with your landlord! Airbnb has been an absolute poison for housing, and that is by far the worst landlord situation I've ever heard. I am so glad you are out of there.