Letter to PMG, 1/26/05: Repairs, Lease Renegotiation
Property Markets Group
5 East 17th Street, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10003
January 26, 2005
Dear Members of the Property Markets Group,
We are writing to update you on the status of our apartment and to request a face-to-face meeting to work out a mutually satisfactory agreement for the remainder of the lease period. The apartment is still in need of extensive repairs before it can be considered habitable, and we would like to negotiate a workable solution with your company in lieu of initiating legal action to address the problems.
Some repairs have been made since our last correspondence, for which we are grateful. Electricians visited the apartment on Saturday, January 22, and again on Sunday, January 23. They restored power to the bathroom, hallway, and all bedroom light fixtures. They were unable, however, to restore power to one of the bedroom wall outlets or to the kitchen light fixture. In addition, they discovered in the course of their work that the wiring in the apartment is faulty and potentially unsafe: the ground wires in the walls are ungrounded, and other deficiencies exist that seemingly violate the housing code.
The electricians also inspected the ceiling in the southern front bedroom. They did not repair the hole in the ceiling, and they predicted that the sagging wood and drywall might collapse entirely if not replaced. The ceiling problems (fungus, leaks, holes) in the kitchen and the western hall bedroom have not been addressed, and the wet, fungus-infested patches and holes have begun to breed fruit flies.
Finally, in examining standards of habitability, we discovered that additional violations exist in the apartment. The lack of a lock on one of the street-facing windows is a serious security problem. The upper lock on our apartment door, which was in place when we arrived and which requires a key to unlock from the inside, constitutes a fire hazard.
In summary, here is a complete list of the critical problems with the apartment, excluding various cosmetic or non-critical problems (e.g. tiles falling off the bathroom walls, peeling paint):
1.Faulty/unsafe wiring
2.Kitchen light fixture not working
3.Unlocked window in southern front bedroom
4.Partially collapsed ceiling in southern front bedroom
5.Fungus and fruit flies from leak in western hallway bedroom ceiling
6.Leak and falling paint/plaster in kitchen ceiling
7.Front door lock is a fire hazard
8.Wall outlet not working in western hallway bedroom
The extent of these problems suggests that the apartment needs serious repairs and will probably be completely uninhabitable while some of those repairs are carried out. We don't relish the prospect of voiding the lease and moving out in the middle of the year, and we expect that you feel similarly agitated at the prospect of losing rent on the unit for the rest of the year. Accordingly, we'd like to meet and discuss possible plans for effecting the most crucial repairs while we remain in habitation. This would require a renegotiation of the lease. Until such a renegotiation occurs, or until your company begins to meet its lease obligations, we will be withholding rent payments. We are confident, however, that we can swiftly reach a mutually satisfactory agreement with your company and avoid any bad blood. It's important to us that we maintain a friendly relationship with you, our landlords; we realize that these complaints are probably becoming tiresome for you, but believe us when we say that we wouldn't be so vocal in our complaints if the problems weren't so overwhelming.
We would greatly appreciate the opportunity to meet with you in the next two weeks. All of us are free the morning of this coming Thursday, February 3. Please contact Matt Norwood at 347-645-7601 to let us know whether that date and time are acceptable, to propose another meeting time, or to ask any questions you might have. We are grateful for your attention to this matter, and we look forward to working with you.
A copy of this letter has also been deposited with the building superintendent, to keep him up to date on the state of the apartment.
Sincerely,
The Tenants of Riverside Drive Apartment 1C
Sven Sherman-Peterson, PhD
Matthew Norwood
Ayodeji Oyewole
Kevin Whelan
5 East 17th Street, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10003
January 26, 2005
Dear Members of the Property Markets Group,
We are writing to update you on the status of our apartment and to request a face-to-face meeting to work out a mutually satisfactory agreement for the remainder of the lease period. The apartment is still in need of extensive repairs before it can be considered habitable, and we would like to negotiate a workable solution with your company in lieu of initiating legal action to address the problems.
Some repairs have been made since our last correspondence, for which we are grateful. Electricians visited the apartment on Saturday, January 22, and again on Sunday, January 23. They restored power to the bathroom, hallway, and all bedroom light fixtures. They were unable, however, to restore power to one of the bedroom wall outlets or to the kitchen light fixture. In addition, they discovered in the course of their work that the wiring in the apartment is faulty and potentially unsafe: the ground wires in the walls are ungrounded, and other deficiencies exist that seemingly violate the housing code.
The electricians also inspected the ceiling in the southern front bedroom. They did not repair the hole in the ceiling, and they predicted that the sagging wood and drywall might collapse entirely if not replaced. The ceiling problems (fungus, leaks, holes) in the kitchen and the western hall bedroom have not been addressed, and the wet, fungus-infested patches and holes have begun to breed fruit flies.
Finally, in examining standards of habitability, we discovered that additional violations exist in the apartment. The lack of a lock on one of the street-facing windows is a serious security problem. The upper lock on our apartment door, which was in place when we arrived and which requires a key to unlock from the inside, constitutes a fire hazard.
In summary, here is a complete list of the critical problems with the apartment, excluding various cosmetic or non-critical problems (e.g. tiles falling off the bathroom walls, peeling paint):
1.Faulty/unsafe wiring
2.Kitchen light fixture not working
3.Unlocked window in southern front bedroom
4.Partially collapsed ceiling in southern front bedroom
5.Fungus and fruit flies from leak in western hallway bedroom ceiling
6.Leak and falling paint/plaster in kitchen ceiling
7.Front door lock is a fire hazard
8.Wall outlet not working in western hallway bedroom
The extent of these problems suggests that the apartment needs serious repairs and will probably be completely uninhabitable while some of those repairs are carried out. We don't relish the prospect of voiding the lease and moving out in the middle of the year, and we expect that you feel similarly agitated at the prospect of losing rent on the unit for the rest of the year. Accordingly, we'd like to meet and discuss possible plans for effecting the most crucial repairs while we remain in habitation. This would require a renegotiation of the lease. Until such a renegotiation occurs, or until your company begins to meet its lease obligations, we will be withholding rent payments. We are confident, however, that we can swiftly reach a mutually satisfactory agreement with your company and avoid any bad blood. It's important to us that we maintain a friendly relationship with you, our landlords; we realize that these complaints are probably becoming tiresome for you, but believe us when we say that we wouldn't be so vocal in our complaints if the problems weren't so overwhelming.
We would greatly appreciate the opportunity to meet with you in the next two weeks. All of us are free the morning of this coming Thursday, February 3. Please contact Matt Norwood at 347-645-7601 to let us know whether that date and time are acceptable, to propose another meeting time, or to ask any questions you might have. We are grateful for your attention to this matter, and we look forward to working with you.
A copy of this letter has also been deposited with the building superintendent, to keep him up to date on the state of the apartment.
Sincerely,
The Tenants of Riverside Drive Apartment 1C
Sven Sherman-Peterson, PhD
Matthew Norwood
Ayodeji Oyewole
Kevin Whelan
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