South Slope Fire Victims Seeking Apartment
As you may recall, there was a huge fire a week ago at the Associated Supermarket on 5th Avenue and 17th Street in the South Slope. Unfortunately the supermarket building was not the only one damaged by the fire. A brownstone on 17th Street was also rendered uninhabitable by the blaze, leaving the owners and…
As you may recall, there was a huge fire a week ago at the Associated Supermarket on 5th Avenue and 17th Street in the South Slope. Unfortunately the supermarket building was not the only one damaged by the fire. A brownstone on 17th Street was also rendered uninhabitable by the blaze, leaving the owners and their tenants without a place to live. It so happens that one of the owners is the woman who designed the original Brownstoner site way back in early 2005 and has continued to work on various Brownstoner-related projects over the years. She, her husband and three children now desperately need a place to live for the next few months somewhere in the South Slope area; they also are looking for a new space for their gallery which was displaced by the fire too. Their tenants also need a place–presumably a smaller one than the family. Please email handax AT gmail DOT com with any leads or suggestions.
Thanks,
Mr. B
I have to disagree with Scrappalonk…think twice about hiring a public adjuster. While there are certainly cases where it can be helpful, in the vast majority of cases, they will never earn their 10% fee. They will try to push you to sign a contract at your weakest moment (from personal experience).
If you feel that the insurance company is not treating you fairly, then you can go back to a public adjuster and carefully interview several and check references (the same way you would carefully consider which real estate broker to hire). At this point, you will at least have an opening offer from the insurance company and you can offer a public adjuster a percentage of the increase (i.e., if the insurance company offered you $1,000,000 and the public adjuster negotiates that up to $1.1mm, you should only pay him a percentage of the extra $100k. If you pay him 10% of the total, then he will get $110k and you will have less than if you just took the insurance company’s offer).
This JUST happened to me and my family (my daughter was a mere 3 days old). Our insurance covered an apartment rental, and they were obligated to find one for us. So while I did my own search to try and find a place in Brooklyn, the insurance company was also trying to find us a space according to our specs. Unfortunately, after 4 weeks in a hotel room while we were waiting, we broke down and agreed to go to the apartment they found for us in Manhattan. One bit of advice: hire a public adjuster. They will work for you, as opposed to your insurance company who is NOT on your side. Good luck!!
So sorry to hear the news! I know it’s not South Slope, but many of the condos in Williamsburg that have not sold have units that are furnished. Sometimes the developers are willing to rent them out. This happened in our building when the last unit went unsold….the developers rented the unit out to a couple who bought in another building until their unit was finished. Wish I had a stronger lead, but I hope that helps!
To th family: So awful- I hope you find a space soon. Has the red Cross contacted you to help you find temporary space? I’ll ask around too. Good luck and please let us know how things turns out.
T & P to the family – I sincerely hope something works out for you.
Getting burned out of your apartment is such a horribly disruptive experience for a family. A good friend of mine lived in that building at Houston and Avenue A that was the site of a huge 5-alarm fire in the middle of the summer. They’ve been shuffling around from one apartment to another (very much a downtown family – living in the UES and Murray Hill has been driving both parents and kids bonkers).
That said, they have benefited from finding affordable sublets through some rather convoluted resources – internet message boards, Facebook, twitter, blasting out email chain letter pleas. So I encourage the family to use every possible resource and then some – I hope they will have the same kind of amazing experience my friends family has gone through. Friends of friends of friends exhibiting graciousness and generosity. Its pretty humbling (in a really great and incredible way) to be on the receiving end of random acts of altruism.
Difficult times; stay tight, and keep your spirits up.
I live very nearby and I truly wish I had the space to put you up, but I don’t 🙁
Would your insurance cover something from VRBO?
I think I mentioned this before on the other post but why not browse craislist for temp furnished sublets? There are ALWAYS listings available and obviously the people are looking to fill them quickly. Good luck. BoD
How horrible. I feel terrible for them, hope everything works out….