Movin’ on Up: The Quest for the Perfect NYC Apartment (Part 3)

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Here’s another little gem from my Apartment.doc file:

8/8/07       I've had quite the interesting day. I woke up to Courtney knocking on my door at 5:30 am (I had just gone to bed at 2) because water was literally pouring in from our hall ceiling. I looked down, and it had traveled into my room, soaking my duvet, which I had thrown on the floor because it was too hot to sleep with. I can't even describe what a mess it was. Water was pouring in from the light fixture, in huge cracks, in a line down the length of the exposed brink wall, and somehow even from random doorways. I can't really explain that one. We had about seven bins out to catch the water, and that wasn't nearly enough. We tried to mop, but there was just too much water.  Finally, I started using the mop to throw the water into the communal hallway. There was a door stopper that was high enough to prevent it from coming back into the apartment.  We started hearing voices all over the building, and as it turns out, the water was dripping into apartments all the way to the second floor.  On the upside, we met several different neighbors.

So today the Rastafarian roofers are scraping up all the paint bubbles in preparation for fixing everything.  Of course, today is the day we have prospective roommates coming to see the place.  I guess if they want to take it after seeing it in this condition, they REALLY want the place!

Confused? I’ll start from the beginning.

My apartment was on the top floor of the building. The roof was old and patched to begin with, and tenants using the roof for parties did not help, so it began leaking with more and more frequency. Miraculously, our super cheap landlord (who had to sell a couple of his buildings quickly to avoid jail time several years back) decided to put a new roof on the joint.

Sadly, he decided to commence the project just before the strongest tornado to ever hit the city touched down in Brooklyn. And sadder still, the winds and the rain that accompanied the tornado swept through Hell’s Kitchen on a night that the workers left our roof covered with nothing but a tarp. A tarp! Don’t you think they would check the weather.com before leaving a naked building unattended?!?

As you can imagine, the entire building was flooded with black, disgusting water. We swept water out of the apartment and down the stairs for what seemed like hours. Amazingly, none of our things were destroyed, but our apartment was never the same.