The more things change, the more they remain the same with NYC housing

 

NYC has always been a hard place in which to live.  But now things are getting worse.  Recently, New York (not sure if the city or state) has enacted a law prohibiting landlords from evicting tenants for any reason without going to the housing court first - even after a lease has ended.  This makes it much harder to get rid of bad tenants who cause problems in the building for other residents.  

I'm not aware of all the factors that are affecting the above tenant's protest.  But I now see references to cockroaches and other vermin in this person's protest signage.  Without the ability to get rid of a bad tenant, a landlord could see an apartment trashed without the ability to remove the tenant.  In the case of my co-op, it took a water line break for us to find that an apartment had been abandoned and that it had been trashed - literally.  (There was trash in every room of the apartment, and we had to pay a contractor to clean it out before we could even fix the plumbing in the place.)  Even if a landlord wants to keep an apartment in good repair, he can't afford to do so - laws regarding apartment rent increases prohibit the landlord from making those repairs and raising the rent to what the market will bear.  So, apartments are being kept empty instead of being repaired and rented out.

Currently, NYC has 3 classes of rental apartments: Rent Controlled, Rent Stabilized, and Free Market Rentals.  Rent Controlled apartments are the most troublesome for landlords, as many rents were established right after World War 2, and have not gone up enough to match the rate of inflation.  Leases for these apartments have been handed down from generation to generation, as family members retain the right to live in their apartments in perpetuity.  Rent Stabilized apartments are slightly different, as a rent control board allows landlords to raise rents to some board approved degree - only after inflation has taken its toll.  These apartments lose their stabilized prices when tenants vacate the place.  In theory, landlords can evict bad tenants in these apartments, but don't often do so.  And then there the Free Market Rentals. There were no rent controls whatsoever, until this law changed.

Now, NYC has even a bigger problem than before.  There are fewer incentives to be landlords, and we will see a speedier shift towards apartments being turned into condominiums, or new condominiums being built.  People like RQS would be in a bind, as they can't afford to buy their apartments (or others like them), nor could they afford to pay free market rates for the few apartments that are available.  Other cities don't have as bad a problem as New York, as they never made the mistake of preserving rent controls over several generations.  Yet, these problems might be a blessing to New York in disguise in the long term, as they tamp down the need for the city to keep upgrading its infrastructure for a growing population.  Could you imagine having to find enough water in the watersheds for double NYC's population?  What about the need for more mass transit options?  Sanitation?  I could go on and on with the problems we could have if real estate developers had their way.  But we need solutions today, and no one has any.  Too much success might be the one thing that kills New York City.  Hopefully, I won't be nearby when it dies....

Sometimes, it can seem overwhelming.

 

Years ago, I used this tool to generate a more feminine version of my face, given the photo on the left. As of today, I'm still far from the surgery which would turn my face into a more androgynous version of the face I see every morning.  But first, I have to lose some weight.

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With that being noted, I try to focus first on the little things I can do now that will show a positive result quickly.  So I have taken this idea and started to apply it around my apartment.  Today, I started to restore the order that I destroyed when I moved media cases out of the way for the installation of my new refrigerator. By taking the CDs out of the storage containers I had temporarily placed them, sorting them back into some sort of order, and putting them back into the media shelves where they belong.  This took the better part of 2 hours, but it was worth every minute, as I gained a square yard in my living room that was formerly used by storage containers.

It'll take a long time for me to get my apartment in the shape I want.  But, by taking the approach of doing a little at a time when I can do something, I'll gradually see results.  If I focus on all the tasks that need to be done, I'll get overwhelmed and nothing will get done.  Soon, when my money supply has been refreshed, I think about more work to be done in my bathroom.  My vanity has seen better years, and I want to install both a new vanity/sink and a new toilet.  (My current toilet is in an ugly shade of yellow, and I want my new one to be in white.)  If I can, I'll ask about new electric wiring, so that I can replace the medicine cabinet (with built in lights and electric outlet) with something that looks nice and meets both my needs and the needs of current electrical code.

Once I'm done with the "easy stuff", it will be time to tackle something more difficult - redoing my kitchen.  I'm tired of 40 y/o linoleum, as well as ugly cabinets, an ugly counter top, and a poor placement of my refrigerator.  Reworking the kitchen layout could allow me to move my oven a little, and replace it with a full sized (30") unit. The only question is when this could take place, as I will not be able to live here while much of this work goes on.

I'll focus on the little things which will make this place more comfortable.  Many of those tasks will involve eliminating the clutter that wastes space.  I'll feel sad to get rid of perfectly good furniture.  But getting rid of things that no longer serve my needs will make life much more comfortable.  And isn't that what everyone should want in old age?