Slumlord Dermot Company Finally Installs Boiler

Huzzah! Dan's quest to not live in an icecube has succeeded. He writes:

The boiler's been replaced and I've had consistent heat and hot water since xmas. Now i just have this unholy clanking coming from the steam pipe every morning b/t 3 and 5 am which jolts me from my bed in fear that its about to explode and take me with it. The super says hopefully it will get resolved this week.

And despite the fact that I'm fairly certain that, for my troublemaking, Dermot will either price me out of my apartment or fail to renew my lease come august, I can take some solace in the fact that the elderly people in my building now treat me like a local hero for getting Dermot to cave in a way they had never been able to.

Last we checked, Daniel's NYC apartment didn't have any heat and he had to call his supervisor whenever he wanted to take a shower. Now there's been some developments as the powerful love of Consumerist exposure melts the heart of the Dermot Company, aka, Snowmiser. Dan writes:

Dec 13th
On Monday, I returned home from work to discover an unexpected message from the city building inspector tucked under my door, stating that he had come to check on my heat and hot water, but that, since I wasn't home, he'd check things out in a neighboring apartment.

I had no idea what would come of this notice, but then two days later (this evening to be precise), another notice appeared under my door announcing that Dermot will be replacing our now infamously busted boiler next Monday...

Coldest Day Of Year. No Heat On. Thanks, Slumlord Dermot Company.

The roach situation has improved, but Daniel still has to call the super every time he wants to take a shower. Also, on Sunday, when it was 21 degrees in New York, he didn't have any heat until 6pm.

At the end of October, Daniel wrote us about the troubles he, and all the other tenants, were having with their building's shady management company, Dermot Company. After his story posted here, Dermot called him, "jumping through hoops to kiss my ass," as Daniel put it. He asked us to refrain from posting the news to make sure that they weren't just making kissy kissy nice nice to put out the bad PR. We agreed, and Daniel's instincts proved correct.

His update, inside...

Stuck With Dermot Management, A Modern-Day Slumlord

A reader writes:

A major NYC real estate corp [Dermot Management] is seriously fucking its tenants, myself included, and I just signed my lease a week ago and am now stuck with these bastards.

I just moved into an apartment at 121 Seaman Ave., in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan.

The property is managed by the Dermot Company, which has been snatching up properties all around New York City and providing broker free rentals through sites like Rent-Direct.com, which is where I found my apartment.

The apartment seemed like a steal: A lot of space, a pretty nice building, a decent neighborhood (if far as hell from all civilization) and a reasonable rent. However, upon moving in to my new apartment, I made a few alarming discoveries: My kitchen is infested with cockroaches, I have only intermittent hot water, and there are no smoke detectors in my apartment.