I've ran into the same situation, plus they also asked me for a security deposit of $75.00 (which was returned after I closed the account). I think it's a new thing that they recently started because when we first bought the building I transferred the apartments into my name and ConEd did not charge me a commercial rate. But recently when a tenant moved out they did.

You should probably do what petebklyn suggested and save yourself the headache.

Posted by: nako at October 16, 2009 11:19 AM in response to ConEdison & two meter building

Nope not bad pot that tenant moved out... (another story for another time)

LOL...They are still alive because I sent them a notice about something else and they responded. Thanks for your help!!

I'll send them another notice or will knock on their door as suggested.

Thanks once again!!

Posted by: nako at October 2, 2009 3:00 PM in response to Bad Smell from Tenant

Wish it was that easy..I just can't go into a tenants apartment without their consent.

Posted by: nako at October 2, 2009 1:53 PM in response to Bad Smell from Tenant

There's one apartment per floor and the floor smells like gargage and dirty clothes

Posted by: nako at October 2, 2009 1:38 PM in response to Bad Smell from Tenant

My mother fell for this and at the beginning her bill was lower but then it went up and when she tried to cancel they gave her the run around.. So just be careful, when something is too good to be true it usually is.. :-)

Posted by: nako at September 18, 2009 12:01 PM in response to ESCOs: U.S. Energy Savings

If everything checks out for all three applicants I'll say first come first serve. That's what I do.

Posted by: nako at September 14, 2009 11:47 AM in response to Choosing a Tenant?

I own a property on DeKalb a block from Nostrand, around Marcy and have rented to a couple (Caucasian male and Asian female) and I have a mixture of Caucasians and African Americans (males and females) living in my home. They have never complained to me about problems in the area. In fact when I gave them the option to stay month to month or sign a one year lease they opted for a one year lease.

DeKalb is a busy street so you will hear loud music when cars go by and you will hear loud talking from people on the street but except from that the neighborhood is getting much better than what it was a few years back.

Posted by: nako at August 28, 2009 1:14 PM in response to Dekalb and Nostrand Safe?

Not building but 4-family home.. :-)

Posted by: nako at July 10, 2009 2:35 PM in response to Renovation finance 101

203k Loan.... See link below for details like Eligible Properties, 203K Eligible Borrowers etc..

http://www.fha203kloan.com/

We used it when we were renovating our building.

Posted by: nako at July 10, 2009 2:30 PM in response to Renovation finance 101

Try Tabernacle Day Care Center (not affiliated with Brooklyn Tab)

Located: 34-52 Kosciuszko Street. between Bedford and Nostrand ave
Phone: 718-638-3209

Not sure if your wife is planning on returning to work after 3 months but they were one of the only places that took infants 3 months and up with no waiting list. Plus they are somewhat flexible when it comes to price.

Good luck with the new baby :-)!!

Posted by: nako at July 8, 2009 2:58 PM in response to Daycare/nursery in BedStuy

I usually type up an invoice with amount, when the rent is due and to whom to write the check and slip it under the tenant’s door a few days before the rent is due. I would pay for the exterminators because as you just said you’re not sure where the bugs came from and can’t prove he brought them in. And either deduct an amount from his rent or pay for his dry cleaning and laundry bill but I wouldn’t do both.

Hope this helps!

Posted by: nako at July 6, 2009 4:43 PM in response to first rent, exterminator deduct.

Two years ago on the 4th of July we were in the middle of renovating our 4th floor apartment. A group of people decided because they could see the fireworks better from my roof and they building next to my, they were going to leave their roof THREE buildings over and come over and have a BBQ party with charcoal and fire...YES charcoal and fire on a roof with tar and NO decking..

My hubby went out on the roof and asked them to leave and they had the nerve to ask him who he was, after a few exchange of words and him threatening to call the cops they decided to leave and we decided to go back downstairs. They were not too happy, we heard more cursing and stomping feet but finally they left... We went back up to the roof to see if there were any damages and saw that they put out the charcoal fire on the other buildings' roof :-o.

Two days later it rained and guess what...Yes water leaked into the top floor apartment messing up the kitchen we just finished painting. The painter had to come back to spackle, sand and repaint the kitchen and my hubby had to patch the roof... That's why you shouldn't have a party on the roof a building that doesn't have a DECK!!

Posted by: nako at July 6, 2009 4:20 PM in response to Roof Party

I own a 4 family building and installed IKEA kitchen's in all 4 apartments, price was very reasonable. The only issue with IKEA is you have to put ALL the pieces together, other than that no complaints. A tenant who moved out damaged one cabinet door and I was able to order a new door from IKEA with no problem at all.

Good luck with your reno!

Posted by: nako at June 22, 2009 3:35 PM in response to opinion on cabinets

We are thinking about doing our back yard...how much did it cost?

Posted by: nako at May 19, 2009 12:00 PM in response to Garden Makeover in Carroll Gardens

It’s funny b/c my husband was supposed to be there with the check but he got caught in traffic (maybe I should have saw that as a sign..lol). We opened a home equity line of credit on our current home and took out the 10% for the down payment.

After I won the bid I was approached by a detective that wanted to know how I knew about the house and if I knew the occupants (second warning). This was my first time winning an auction so I thought maybe this was common procedure. I explained that I saw this home on property shark for auction and that I didn’t know who lived there. This got me thinking so while waiting for my husband I tried asking the bank representative a few questions but he was very standoffish. All he wanted was the check and was upset that I had him waiting.

Once my husband got there we were told that we had 30 days from that day to get a mortgage and close, if not we would lose our 10%. We both had good credit and at that time the economy was doing very well. We knew somebody lived there and thought oh well worse case we might have to evict them but didn’t really worry much about that.

We were so happy and decided to go to “our new home” and introduce ourselves to whoever lived... after that meeting we started thinking what did we get ourselves into.

The owner said she met “somebody” who told her they were going to help her with her mortgage so she signed her deed over to them (not sure of all the details) but it look like that person took out a second mortgage on the home and skip town leaving her responsible for both mortgages. She couldn’t pay them (hence property under foreclosure). She then told us that the matter have been under investigated for months now and if we could we should try to get our money back.

My huby contacted the bank right away and they said did you read the contact no refund of deposit and not their responsiblity we should have did our homework before we bidded on the property. I was pretty upset because when I asked the back representative if there were any outstanding issues or if there were more than one mortgage on the home he refused to answer. At this point we are starting to see our 10% flying away in the breeze so we’re thinking we have to try something.

We contact a few banks but same problem they needed access to the home so they can appraise, (current occupant refused to give them access) without access no appraiser, no appraisal no mortgage. We even went as far as trying to get a hard money loan (interest rate of 12% or higher) but then if things wasn’t bad enough we found out that we were not only responsible for the first mortgage but the second one as well. At this time we are thinking there is no way we can afford to carry the property until we can get current occupants evicted, pay the lawyer fees and fix up the place. Bye Bye Bye 10% :-(

My huby tried calling the bank for months trying to see if we could get back at least some of the money back…until he finally gave up.

This caused a big strain on our marriage (lucky for us at that time we had no children) we were very depressed and upset..not really at each other but at the situation and wished we knew what we knew now.. (Too late). There is a light at the end of the tunnel not this one but another tunnel. We knew we had to do something to try and recoup and at that point we really had nothing to lose. We had some money left in our line of credit so we took some of it and bought another property (fixer upper) thru regular channels (no more auctions). We worked days, nights and weekends and I'm happy to say thank god it’s fully rented and carrying itself with some left over to help pay for our first OPS….

Posted by: nako at April 13, 2009 12:05 PM in response to Housing Auction

My huby and I made a very expensive mistake that to this day we are still paying for. We set a budget and did not go over it, we thought we did our homework but to our dismay we didn't.

First advise to you would be make sure the building is not occupied, if it is try and talk to occupant(s) of the home to see what the story is before biding on the property (in our case we didn't do this until after we won the bid only to find out that there was a whole lot going on that we weren't aware of). If the property is occupied you will have to budget for renovation costs and costs of lawyers fee for eviction proceedings.

Another advice would be do a title check to see how many mortgages are on the property (this may cost a few hundred dollars but trust me doing that now might save you much more in the future). In many cases once you win the bid you also "win" the responsibility of paying off all mortgages on the home.

Remember once you turn that bankers check over there is NO TURNING BACK!!

Hope this helps, good luck and I hope your experience will be better than ours!

Posted by: nako at April 10, 2009 10:40 AM in response to Housing Auction

Between October 1st and May 31st, a period designated as "Heat Season," building owners are also required to provide tenants with heat under the following conditions:

Between the hours of 6:00 AM and 10:00 PM, if the outside temperature falls below 55 degrees, the inside temperature is required to be at least 68 degrees Fahrenheit; and,

Between the hours of 10:00 PM and 6:00 AM, if the temperature outside falls below 40 degrees, the inside temperature is required to be at least 55 degrees Fahrenheit.

See linkk below for more information:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/tenants/heat-and-hot-water.shtml

Personally I think your landlady is just trying to buy time!

Posted by: nako at April 9, 2009 2:04 PM in response to Seasonal timing, boiler replcmnt

Repair people sometimes charge just as much as if you were to buy a new stove or frig. Lowe's usually have reasonable prices (especially for a rental apartment) also check out their open box section sometimes you can find very good deals.

Posted by: nako at March 9, 2009 1:19 PM in response to Refrigerator/stove repair needed

H $ HW is included and the apartment is about 1000 sf with the backyard about 500sf plus 13ft ceilings thru out the apartment... I was kind of thinking about $1800 - $1900.

Thanks for all your feeback.

Posted by: nako at February 23, 2009 12:17 PM in response to Renting in Bedstuy

Thanks for all your comments.

Posted by: nako at January 16, 2008 10:46 AM in response to Security Deposit increase or not?

Have you seen the tenant in a while?

Posted by: Brokedeveloper at October 2, 2009 2:04 PM in response to Bad Smell from Tenant

Maybe knock on tenant's door &, if he answers, tell him you are concerned that the bad smell meant he might have died & been rotting in there. Once you have his attention, tell him to clean the place.

Posted by: Arkady at October 2, 2009 2:10 PM in response to Bad Smell from Tenant

Tell the tenant that there is a leak in the apartmant below and you need access to turn off the water for a little while....

Or that you need to check the wiring in one of the outlets...

etc etc.

You can go in for those type of things. It is your house, afterall.

Posted by: henrycurtis at October 2, 2009 2:13 PM in response to Bad Smell from Tenant

I'd call the tenant and inform him that other tenants were complaining about the smell. What else can you do?

Recently, one of my tenants complained about a neighbor having "loud sex." I haven't spoken to the affending tenant and don't plan to.

Posted by: IronBalls at October 2, 2009 2:16 PM in response to Bad Smell from Tenant

I would at least knock on the door and request access. If the odor smells obnoxious to you, and they refuse entry (or aren't there), and also refuse to set up a future date for you to inspect the apartment, I believe you could call in a complaint to 911. There was an article recently in the Daily News about a hoarder with floor to ceiling trash and police and/or firefighers are allowed to gain access to an apartment if they have reason to believe there is imminent danger or hazardous conditions. As a landlord, you are typically allowed access your units to inspect for repairs, so if you don't want to involved police, etc., and the tenants refuse access I would send them a certfied letter notifying them you plan to inspect the apartment for repairs on Oct. XX, 2009 at X:YZ time and follow through on that date.

Posted by: setancre at October 2, 2009 2:22 PM in response to Bad Smell from Tenant

Oh god. I had a Dumbo studio in the 80s with a trust fund baby downstairs neighbor who did gay phone sex for pin money (he wasn't gay but unfortunately he WAS disinherited). He was LOUD the only solution was to scream at him to shut the **** up.

Then I had tenants later who never put the garbage out ever, for over a year. After they left (well, I threw them out) I had to throw out the fridge just from roach infestation. It was revolting.

I feel everyone's pain. Only solution? Time heals most wounds. If you think the tenant is smelling because he's dead, call the cops.

Posted by: Stonergut at October 2, 2009 2:24 PM in response to Bad Smell from Tenant

Basil Fawlty showed great ingenuity in coming up with excuses to check residents' rooms in "Fawlty Towers." One of my favorites: When caught snooping, he began tapping the nearest surface with a look of deep concentration, and explained to the outraged guest that he was "checking the walls."

A tenant whose smells betoken foul hygiene is a high risk for roach infestation, and that affects everyone. I'd be pretty aggressive and candid in this situation, even if it initially involves "checking the walls."

Posted by: Brenda from Flatbush at October 2, 2009 2:29 PM in response to Bad Smell from Tenant

"Wish it was that easy..I just can't go into a tenants apartment without their consent."

I don't get it...isn't this in your lease? Not a lawyer, but doesn't every landlord have a right to go in with appropriate notice? You've had complaints, and you have the right to see if this is creating a vermin situation or other habitability hazard.

Posted by: bkrules at October 2, 2009 2:32 PM in response to Bad Smell from Tenant

Bad pot?

Posted by: HoneysuckleWeeks at October 2, 2009 2:39 PM in response to Bad Smell from Tenant

Nope not bad pot that tenant moved out... (another story for another time)

LOL...They are still alive because I sent them a notice about something else and they responded. Thanks for your help!!

I'll send them another notice or will knock on their door as suggested.

Thanks once again!!

Posted by: nako at October 2, 2009 3:00 PM in response to Bad Smell from Tenant