Free rent in New York City? Sounds too good to be true.

Not in this story, which, frankly is gonna live rent-free in my head for awhile.

Let’s investigate.

Thanks for the year of free rent in Brooklyn

So a friend and I move into this newly renovated apartment in Brooklyn. It’s nice enough, but just about every one of the 14 units has some sort of weird problem.

One unit had the hot and cold water mixed up (flush a few times and get a heated toilet). One unit none of the outlets are grounded. One unit there are gaps around the windows.

Everything in life is a tradeoff.

The problem in our unit was a leak in the air conditioner lines. The leak was probably at the roof, but we ended up with no AC.

We call them and it takes a month to get someone. He refills the lines and a week later, the problem comes back. We spend the summer getting the system topped up every week.

At the end of the summer they decided that our repairs (and all of the neighbors) were getting too expensive. So they send us bills.

Well, that’s not how renting works.

Our bill was in the tens of thousands of dollars (recharging that system weekly must have been expensive). They also start trying to charge every unit for any infraction, like $100 for every unit for a single scrap of paper found in a hall. The tenants all get together to have a little meeting.

It turns out that they never got a certificate of occupancy for the building. The city had it on the books as a furniture warehouse. So collectively we all just stop paying them. Rent, fines, fees, nothin’.

We retain a lawyer and just live there.

I mean, squatters’ rights are a real thing.

The company tried to get us out by cutting lighting and other services. We contacted the lawyer, the company would get fined, and we’d get our lights back. They tried to change the main lock once but we let the locksmith know what was going on so he stopped. They didn’t try it a second time.

The first floor of the building was an off-track betting parlor. They were particularly noisy and obnoxious, so one resident called the health department over a moldy loaf of bread we found in the basement.

Saving bread over some moldy bread.

One of my best memories was watching a bunch of guys in hazmat suits clear out the betting parlor so they could run tests.

Eventually they try to get the certs, but to do that they need to do inspections with the drywall removed. They tried to do it while we lived there and the lawyer fought it for not being in a livable state.

Finally they realized they needed us out (if they got the C of O while we were still there, we’d owe back rent). They take us to court to get evictions.

Lawyer gets everything pushed back as far as he can, but finally we go to city court. Lawyer points out that they’re trying to evict 14 units, but you can’t evict more than 10 at a time.

Court ejects the case. I don’t think their lawyer gets a single word in.

Keeping a lawyer’s mouth shut? That’s saying something.

So now we get a county court date for an ejection instead of an eviction. Again, lawyer pushes it out as much as he can, but eventually we go. Court agrees to eject us all, but sees the evidence of lighting and lock tampering.

Asks our lawyer what would be a reasonable timeframe. Lawyer asks for 4 months. Judge gives us 6. Everyone stays until the last month.

That’s the best deal I’ve ever heard of in Brooklyn.

At the end of it all, we got to live in a newly renovated apartment in a trendy area of Brooklyn for free for a little over a year.

I’d take a year of free rent for a couple appearances in court.

Let’s see how the comments feel.

This person says, lucky you got the neighbors to cooperate.

Someone else wants the deets.

This person is a skeptic.

And someone else is devil’s advocate for the landlord.

Another user says New Yorkers will go wild for this story.

Like I said…

Free rent in NYC? Lives rent-free in my head.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.