Ups and Downs

The Sunday New York Times Real Estate section is informative, and it strikes me as a wonderful time capsule of the complaints, concerns and mumbled petulance of that rare breed, the New York City Dweller.

This week, someone is kvetching about their elevator being replaced.

The complaint is not about a defective elevator or a landlord who is trying to drive out rent regulated tenants by dragging his or her feet (cloven hoofs?) while pretending to make repairs.

While I don't think my parents or their friends had the answers (damn, I don't think they even knew the questions), I cannot imagine that hardy but twisted generation who lived through the Depression, World War II, the horrors of the concentration camps and the fear engendered by the atomic bomb whinging about repairs.

Yes, I can sympathize with someone who has to walk up 9 flights of stairs for several weeks.

But what to do?  Er...........deal with it.  Go out less.  Ask a kid in the building to run errands.  Plan your summer very carefully.

The real complaint, however, was not how to live with it, but how to pay for it.  The tenants want to withhold rent, which actually makes sense. You pay for a service, you want that service.  I get it.

And, at the same time, you want your elevator to work.  If you are renting a condo unit, then you are asking the person who owns your unit (who does not control the elevator repairs), to take a hit.

And you are standing on your rights, as well you should, to a landlord who need not renew your non-rent regulated lease.

The person who answered this query in the Times had the best response, one which should be heeded by all.  If you withhold your rent, you will be sued.  If you are sued, that becomes part of a database.  You are now on record as someone who did not pay his/her rent.  You can explain this away easily to your next prospective landlord, and your interlocutor may sympathize, but they may not rent to you, either.