How Your Donation Will Help

On March 31, 2010 I posted a plea for donations to help me raise funds to afford to move.  For those of you who are interested in more details of this situation here goes.

When I moved into this apt. 2.5 yrs ago I never thought I'd be moving so soon again. I had no idea that when I signed the lease the landlord would not at least clean up the apt from the last tenant before I moved in. But when I came to see the apt after I was given the keys, to my dismay I had to hire someone to help me clean this filth. What I could never clean is the white paint on the hardwood floors that the landlord dropped when painting the apt walls and ceiling. There were holes in the walls inside the cabinets that I had to fix myself and the radiator (heat) was missing parts that enable you to turn off or on the heat. I had to pay for all those things myself.

Within a few months of moving into my apt. the light fixture in the bedroom stopped working. Experience had shown me that asking for anything that needs to be fixed in your apt gets you on the sh*t list with your landlord and so I just chose to ignore it. Then the light in my small hallways stopped working. I chose to ignore it. Then the bathroom light fixture stopped working. I had no choice but to contact the Super to fix the light. The bathroom light was fixed but the landlord called to ask me what happened. Ugh. I didn't even ask for the rest to be fixed at that time.

A few months ago I woke up and found that my television would not turn on and the cable box was off. I checked the rest of the apt and the cable box and television worked in the other room I have. I promptly called the Super. He opened the junction box and flipped the switch and the lights came back on. About 5 minutes after he left it shut off. I then tried to flip the switch myself and the same thing happened. After the Super came back to see what was happening we learned that there was severe damage to the wires in the wall and I had to push hard to get them to get me the proper electrical team to come and fix the wires.

About 6 weeks ago give or take there was another owner on the sixth floor that decided to do construction without proper permits and had tools that were so violent that it shook the building and caused the window casings in my apt to dislodge from the rest of the sheet-rocked wall. In order to get that to stop I had to call the city of NY and file a complaint with the Dept. of Bldgs. They issued a stop work order and thanked me for alerting them because they not only were doing who the heck knows that shook the building so hard but were making electrical changes without a licensed electrician and could have put all our lives in harms way causing a fire.  The building management was annoyed with me for making the complaint and marched into my apt telling me that nothing was wrong with the structure of the wall.



You can see the severe damage as well as the un-insultated wall of the apt. My apartment is on a corner and half the apt is an exterior wall.

About 1 week after a small portion of the wires were fixed allowing the lights to work in the bathroom, hallway, bedroom & part of the second room near the exterior wall to work again I noticed that the wall was brown. I mentioned this to the building's board president when he asked me how things were working. He looked baffled.

A few weeks ago we had a huge Noreaster with torrential rains and heavy winds that were classified as level one hurricane strong. During that time water began to come gushing through the ceiling and heavily seeping through the walls of my bathroom and closet. Although I called every contact person including the Super and the building management no one was returning my calls and when I finally got someone I was told I wasn't priority. I finally called my landlord after having to make complaints to the city of New York to let him know that the management was screaming at me and angry with me and told me that since I made complaints to the city and they were fined I would not get anyone to come fix it. Retribution.

The landlord asked me to keep records of everything and so I have. But only about 1 week after my initial call to him about the situation he informed me that the terms of our agreement about the following years lease to be offered were null and void.

Coincidence?

I was given a very suspect story that he is having financial problems and will be moving his family into the apt next door which he also owns and that he is going to break part of the adjoining wall into the apt. where I reside and combine the apts and making my apt. a very small efficiency apt. If I want to pay the same amount of rent he told me I could stay.

I think it's obvious he knew what that answer would be. As do you my loyal readers.

I attempted to negotiate but he would not even make a counter offer. I do not believe his story. That is the bottom line.

I cannot let his financial problems and stories become my problems too. And so here I am asking for donations on my site so that we can move.

I believe in spirit and this must be their way of getting us to move on from this unhealthy apartment.  However I was not financially prepared to move at this time, especially with the economy being so bad and not having nearly the income I had even one year ago.

I found a great apt just around the corner from where I live right now. The rent is similar to what I have been paying but the size is 5 times larger with huge closets (something lacking in this apt.) That apt and most in NYC require a broker's fee plus first and last months rent.

So I've turned to you, my friends and blog readers for help. I need to raise about $2000 to be able to move. That is in addition to the first and last months rent I am scrounging to put together from my small income.

I have a paypal account and if you send me your email address and the amount you'd be able to donate to me for this purpose I will send you email through paypal for you to make the donation.

Leo, KC, Sadie and I are most grateful to any of you that can help. Every dollar adds up and hopefully together we can raise the $2k needed so we can get the heck out of this moldy electric fire trap.

Thank you.