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…

Oct 30

One of the guys in their maintenance department just called up to schedule an exterminator appointment, said he’d check out the hot water issue, and was pleased to learn that after two weeks, my super finally came over last night and installed a smoke detector. He also gave me his personal telephone extension so that I wouldn’t have to deal with their maintenance line. He said he’d call me back later today to let me know when the exterminator is available.

-Daniel

Dec 2

Hi Daniel,

Just wanted to follow up and see how this situation turned out?

-Ben

Dec 3

Welp, shortly after the post on Consumerist was mentioned on Gawker, I got a call from someone in Dermot’s maintenance dept. who promised me he’d get all of these issues resolved as quickly as possible. (Gee, it only took embarrassing the company on the biggest blog in NYC to get their attention. How responsive!) He also gave me a direct number to reach him at so that I wouldn’t get caught in voicemail hell next time I have an issue needing attention. Thus far they have sent an exterminator, so my roach situation has improved. And they also had the super install a smoke detector.

However, the hot water is still on-and-off, and, as I discovered at a tenant meeting two weeks ago, the boiler is broken and needs to be repaired or replaced. Dermot is leaning towards replacement, meaning that I, and the other tenants, will be subject to paying for an MCI. i.e., I just moved into the building a month and a half ago, and now I need to shell out X amount of dollars to pay for the broken boiler. In the meantime, if there’s no hot water, I have to call the super to have him switch the boiler back on, because it keeps blowing out every 30 minutes. You can imagine how great I feel about having to call the guy first thing in the morning to tell him to roll out of bed and hit a switch so that I can take a shower.

Also, yesterday was the coldest day of the year so far, and there was no heat til nightfall. It was snowing, but my radiator didn’t come on til 6pm. Not heat in the morning. On a Sunday. I was freezing all day.

In addition, I also learned a few other things at the tenant meeting: No one in my building has ever reached anyone on the maintenance number, and they say that they’ve reporting the same issues to Dermot repeatedly since they took over the building, and that they have yet to be resolved.

Dermot sent a building manager to the meeting who sought to make every excuse for the lack of traction on any and all maintenance issues, saying that she has no idea why no one’s answering the maintenance line. After I tore her a new asshole, refusing to roll over for her corporate doublespeak, half the tenants came up to me and thanked me for standing up for everyone.

We were then told that we should take all our problems to the super, and not contact Dermot directly, even though during tenant orientation they tell us to leave the super alone and to take everything directly to the maintenance dept. We were also told that contacting the building manager directly was a very effective form of action, yet she refused to post her telephone number.

Another exciting tidbit: The previous super and her sons, who were fired when Dermot took over the building, have been sneaking back into the building and sabotaging utilities. The building manager told us to be on the lookout and not to let them into the building. I asked how I’m supposed to know what they look like considering that I just moved in. She said she wasn’t legally allowed to distribute their photos. Get that? Disgruntled ex-employees are attacking the electricity and gas in my building, but I’m not allowed to be shown who they are! Boy, that makes me feel safe.

There are also some questionable things happening with my lease — namely, it appears that Dermot misled me about the legal status of my apartment, telling me that it was rent stabilized when it actually is not — at least, according to my City Council rep. I’m currently investigating the matter with my attorney.

The Dermot disaster continues…

-Daniel

PREVIOUSLY: Stuck With Dermot Management, A Modern-Day Slumlord
More like Dermot Mismanagement [Orthodox Anarchist]

(Photo: Getty)

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