Best way to deal with an unreasonable neighbor?
Dear Reasonable People, I live in a small 6-unit coop building in Carroll Gardens. Last winter we had some major issues with one resident repeatedly setting the common building thermostat to 78-80 degrees, so we replaced the thermostat with a Tekmar boiler control in the basement (which has the additional advantage of providing finer control…
Dear Reasonable People,
I live in a small 6-unit coop building in Carroll Gardens. Last winter we had some major issues with one resident repeatedly setting the common building thermostat to 78-80 degrees, so we replaced the thermostat with a Tekmar boiler control in the basement (which has the additional advantage of providing finer control over the building heat). Now, everyone in the building is much more comfortable, except for the same resident, who is throwing a fit that borders on psychotic.
She claims that it’s freezing cold in her apartment, when the rest of the building is 74 degrees or warmer. But she refuses to let anyone in to investigate the problem, and she refuses to put a thermometer on her wall to prove that it’s cold. At first, she acted out by leaving angry phone messages, yelling at us in the hallway, and stomping around in her bedroom (which is above my living room). But now we feel like she’s putting us in danger – she started leaving her oven on all day to add heat to the apartment.
I’ve been in her apartment before (when the situation wasn’t so hostile). It didn’t feel any different, temperature-wise, from the other units. She has working radiators and new well-insulated windows. And she now has two additional 1500W oil-filled electric space heaters (one of which I personally gave her). So her motivation must be a combination of her being naturally cold (possibly due to some medical condition?) and feeling like she has no control over the situation. But the fact is that her behavior was unreasonable before she started causing a fire hazard, and now we have a duty to ourselves to do something about the problem.
What do you Brownstoners think we should do? Do we have legal options? Should we talk to the city? Is there anything we can do without starting an all-out war between neighbors? Help!
Sounds like it’s a good thing for the city to have access though, Ysabella. If the city checks it out and takes the temp inside her apartment, it would prove this woman is a nutcase and her apartment is not as cold as she claims it to be.
You think you have problems now. Wait till she calls 311.
Legally you have to give the city access. It doesn’t matter whether it is rent controlled, condo, whatever.
There is always the chance that the carbon monoxide build up from the burning stove will solve all your problems.
What about a non-working thermostat in the hallway? I don’t know anything about the ethical issues or legality, but in some studies in workplaces they found that people reported that they were much more comfortable when they could adjust the thermostat – even when it was non-working and didn’t actually impact the temperature. They just didn’t know that.
If it’s a psychological issue, then it might help.
Emigre: she told us. I guess it was her way of “proving” what she has to do to stay warm. And then one day she left for work and forgot to turn the oven off, and had to call someone in the building to turn it off.
Its too late for this to be handled in a non-acrimionious fashion. Sounds like you’re dealing with someone irrational, who you either need to shut the hell up or get the hell out. Only way to accomplish either goal, given her refusal to allow anyone in the apartment to try to remedy the heat “issue”, is to initiate legal proceedings to terminate her proprietary lease. Either she will back off/settle if she doesn’t have the means to defend the lawsuit, or you will be tied up in litigation for a very long time.
She might get rational very quickly if she faces the loss of her proprietary lease.
One question: How do you actually know she’s leaving her oven on all day if she won’t let you in the apartment?
Wow, this really puts into perspective the really very minor grievances I occasionally have with my fellow co-op neighbors… Good luck!!
She’s not elderly. Probably late 50s or early 60s.
Sounds like there’s some consensus on speaking with a lawyer…
Not to be nasty, but what *would* the board have the stomach for? Waiting for you all to be incinerated when her oven blows up the coop? It seems like you’ve done everything short of calling in the lawyer, and she hasn’t been reasonable, so it’s time to take it up a notch.
Good luck, it really sounds like a tough situation – and I think you’re right that bringing in the lawyer might make it a little less personal.