Insist the agreement specifies a security guard to protect your premises and belongings.
Scaffolding will allow access from the ground floor.
6
I once saw a trade worker spit in some food being delivered to a room in one of the trendiest hotels in Manhattan. It was during a renovation back in the seventies. I am sure that we have become a much more civilized society since then...
3
Rather than trying to be a thorn in the side of your landlord, why don't you count your blessings that you have a rent-stabilized apartment in Manhattan and that your landlord is actually bothering to spend money on improving the building despite the meager return on investment? Yet again, the rent-stabilized class shows its entitlement mindset!
9
I don’t understand where all of the distrust and hostility toward the rent-stabilized renter (the original poster) is coming from. He/she is not stealing anything, or abusing the landlord or others in any way. C’mon folks!
In any event, I would recommend the following:
1) Carefully review the lease to determine what provisions have been made (if any) for such maintenance work, including for access, worksite conditions, time of work, supervision, security, per diem reimbursement, schedule and budget, etc.
2) Contact the landlord/lease holder to determine the validity of the rumors of upcoming work.
3) If work is indeed planned and you will be impacted in some way, I would contact a real estate attorney to negotiate a written agreement on your behalf. You’ll likely save yourself a lot of hassle if you hire a lawyer and their staff to do this for you. You’ll be taken more seriously, and the terms of the agreement are more likely to be followed by the landlord and his/her contractor(s), if you have legal help up front. The written agreement can cover every item listed in #1 above, plus any others you and your attorney deem appropriate.
It might cost you a couple of hundred dollars, but it it well worth for peace of mind and open lines of communication.
16
There is a huge distrust created between landlord and tenant by the rent stabilization laws. This tenant seems to be overreacting to mere rumors about granting access to their apartment to make repairs, fearing that workmen will abuse the apartment. Why such fear? Just talk to the managing agent/landlord/super, right? Not exactly, sometimes landlords will hire the cheapest contractor to make repairs, one that will take forever to get the job done. Depending on the access needed to the apartment, this can be a bigger imposition on the tenant than normal. Why should the landlord take the tenant's needs into consideration when they are paying well below market rent and is unlikely to move?
3
If I were the landlord, I'd do what the tenant is doing - use my rights to the full extent of the law.
Which will undoubtedly be the landlord having free access and staging. If the tenant doesn't like it they can move out. Which of course they won't, because they are effectively stealing money from the landlord already through below market rent. How do I know this? Because landlord's approach paying tenants far differently from deadbeat tenants. They bend over backwards for paying tenants, much in the way Best Buy does for its customers. Not because they are saints, but because that's the profitable approach.
1
There are ways of dealing with this that do not involve workers coming through the tenant's apartment throughout the work. For example, the landlord can set up scaffolding in the back of the building from the roof to the ground level. (Such scaffolding will make it easier to conduct the work as well.) The workers can then enter the building from the street, go up to the roof (via an internal stairwell if one goes to the roof, otherwise via a temporary metal staircase set up on the sidewalk in front of the building), and use the scaffolding to descend from the roof to the ground level at the back of the building.
If I were the tenant, if workers do need to come through his/her apartment, I would definitely have security cameras set up throughout the apartment, with a recording device covering a rolling 7 days of camera images. I would request that the landlord pay for the installation of the cameras and recording device.
10
the landlord is already going broke because the tenant doesn't want to pay for their use of other people's property, and then the tenant complains that the landlord wants to use their own property?
And instead the landlord is supposed to pay for scaffolding, which will have to be installed from the ground in any case?
This is a really silly comment
5
Instead of a hidden camera I'd put up a very visible camera with a prominent notice, and signs that my bathroom, kitchen, etc. are strictly off-limits. Any written agreement would specify that access is strictly limited to walking through, plastic sheeting will be put down every day to protect my carpet and removed every evening when work is done.
8
Ugh. Why would questioner assume the workers would rummage through his/her fridge? Do they think that painters/workers are of a different species who do not behave as professionals and have no common courtesy?
42
Don't be so sure. I had a summer job in college where we were regularly in peoples' homes and offices. 99% of the guys were totally professional. But there were stories of one guy regularly helping himself to food in other peoples' refrigerators. I like to think making/eating a tuna sandwich was the worst he did but I don't know for sure.
10
Several years ago, everyone was evacuated during a fire in one of the apartments in my line. After several hours of inspecting the building, the firefighters declared it safe to return. When I came back upstairs, I found several empty water bottles in my apartment that they had obviously helped themselves to. While I didn't begrudge them the water, I was creeped out that they had gone into my refrigerator and who knows where else.
7
I am a physician and after a Staten Island based construction crew worked in my house while I was at work I received a notice from a pharmacy in Staten Island that somebody was trying to use my prescriptions to buy oxycontin from them. Apparently, the worker rummaged through my desk and found an old prescription pad and stole it. He even found a paper with my signature on it to forge from. Sure I should have been more careful - but I did not think I needed to lock up everything in my apartment. Workers rummage through medicine chests, desks, closets and other personal places all the time. Tenants take heed... get a camera.
13
Ronda, Billy, c'mon. What about making sure you have renter's insurance? That your Landlord's workers are bonded and insured? Be present, if possible, or have someone housesit during the workday, or drop in at unannounced times?
If it's repointing and not painting - you're in for a mess if your health, apartment and possessions are not properly protected.
And any rent abatement should be on a PER DIEM basis - for ANY day that the Landlord has access for this work. Whether his guys show up or not. That's the only way to maybe incentivize him to do the work in a timely fashion and restore your household to "quiet enjoyment".
Hope for the best, sure. Be respectful to and considerate of the workers, as you would any human being. But it's prudent to prepare for the worst.
25
"Quiet enjoyment" or "peaceable possession" are confusing legal terms that have nothing to do with lack of noise. They simply mean that a tenant can occupy their space without other parties claiming a legal right to do so.
You are quite correct that repointing is a dirty mess. Mortar dust will affect all tenants along the back wall. Shards from the abrasive wheels used to remove the old mortar may embed themselves in window glass. Then there is noise that seemingly goes on forever. A school across the street from me was done this summer after being covered with scaffolding. This might be another item carried through the unit.
6
Apartment insurance can't replace priceless items collected during travels etc. over the years.
1
Assuming the rear wall of your building is brick, I cannot imagine why it is being painted in the first place. Brick is rough and difficult to paint and there can be adhesion problems. Then there is the eventual matter of repointing the bricks. Paint can trap moisture inside the masonry leading to other problems.
13
I'm finding it hard to believe that a brownstone (which in NYC describes a structure originally built as a single family dwelling) has the minimum six units to qualify for rent stabilization.
2
Many brownstones are five stories high. During the 50's, they were divided into ten apartments, front and rear, per floor.
Some of these, of course, have been restored to single family use and sell for millions.
8
Just depends on the particular circumstances of the building and the lease. Entirely possible. But why do you care?
11
mls, Many 5/6 story brownstones are converted with 2 ~500 sq ft apartments a floor leading to 10-12 units a building, a 6 story brownstone with one apartment a floor would also qualify.
4