It might be only people who enjoy renting an entire apartment to vacation in New York City who remember the legal fight between the state of New York and Airbnb over a new state law. Last month, the governor signed a bill limiting rentals in New York City and imposes stiffer penalties on people who rent out entire apartments. While it’s a state law, the lawsuit has been dismissed, and it’s the city that will enforce the law. [More]
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Dear New Yorkers: Your Short-Term Airbnb Listing Could Lead To $7,500 Fine
By 10.21.16 — Updated: 10.24.16
It’s already illegal for New York residents to list their unoccupied apartments on Airbnb for less than 30 days, but now it’s illegal and it could cost them: Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday signed into law a measure that penalizes hosts up to $7,500 for such listings. [More]
Feds Say Landlords Offered Reduced Rent For Sex, Evicted Tenants When They Refused
By 9.1.16
Tenants of homes owned by a pair of St. Louis landlords say the weren’t just subjected to inappropriate sexual comments, but that one landlord also offered to look the other way on the rent if tenants would sleep with him. When the renters refused these advances, they claim the landlords tried to throw them out on the streets. [More]
Terrible Landlord Accused Of Harassing, Literally Freezing Out Tenants
By 7.27.16
The landlord in East Harlem in New York City wanted the last rent-stabilized tenants out. The rest of the building was being renovated to attract market-rate tenants, but the family with five kids just wouldn’t leave, even after the five other households in the building did. Now the landlord has been arrested and accused of harassing the family and endangering their children. [More]
Airbnb Wants To Get Into Bed With U.S. Landlords
By 12.17.15
Though there are surely tenants out there renting their apartments out on Airbnb without their landlord’s blessing, the short-term rental site wants to get on the good side of apartment owners around the country. To that end, it’s reaching out to a few large companies with a lot of properties to see if all sides can work out something beneficial to all involved. [More]
Proposed Rule Would Ban Smoking In All Public Housing
By 11.12.15
Even though smoking has reached historically low levels in the U.S., regulators continue to try to snuff out cigarettes with bans on smoking in public spaces. We’ve already seen beaches, parks, and office buildings say no to tobacco, and a new federal rule would extend this anti-smoking stance to all public housing in the U.S. [More]
Apartment-Dwellers Shop Online More, Create Nightmare For Complex Staff
By 10.21.15
This year, college students’ use of Amazon Prime reached critical enough mass to create mail center traffic jams. It’s not just young adults, though: apartment-dwellers are having so many packages delivered that current systems for managing resident mail aren’t working, and landlords are looking for other ways to manage the influx from online shopping. [More]
After 25 Years, Chicago Landlords Continue Rampant Illegal Discrimination Against Section 8 Vouchers
By 10.14.15
Under Chicago law, landlords are prohibited from discriminating against families who pay all or part of their rent using Housing Choice Vouchers – most commonly referred to as “Section 8.” But a new report shows that thousands of listings for rental properties in the city blatantly disregard the 25-year-old law, showing bias against low-income, minority residents. [More]
NYC Apartment Owner Suing Co-Op Board After 16 Years Of Waiting To Move In
By 7.7.15
Anticipation can be a heady thing, a mix of optimism and suspense, with the knowledge that eventually, you’ll get what you’re after. But one New York City co-op owner is likely past the stage of simple expectation, after waiting 16 years to move into an apartment that cost him millions. [More]
Apartment Complex Claims Copyright On All Tenants’ Reviews & Photos Of Property
By 3.10.15
When you move into an apartment building you may face all sorts of rules about noise, public areas, trash collection, and paint colors, but one Florida management company tried to go the extra mile by including a “social media addendum” telling tenants that not only will they be hit with a $10,000 fine for griping about their living situation on any social media platform, but that the apartment owners automatically hold the copyright for anything tenants write about — and any photos they take of — the place. [More]
NYC To Publicly Shame Landlords Who Harass Tenants
By 9.24.14
There are few types of people on this planet more worthy of scorn than landlords who make life miserable — whether through threats, ignored repairs, or harassing letters and calls — for the tenants who pay them money every month. Just ask the many renters of New York City apartments whose landlords treat them poorly in the hopes that they will move out and be replaced by new tenants willing to pay higher rents. But the NYC City Council has passed a new bill that not only doubles the penalties for these scumbags, but publishes their names on a city website. [More]
Landlord Demands Current Tenants Prove They Make At Least $100K To Keep Apartments
By 5.6.14
A lot of apartment buildings in pricey cities have strict income and credit requirements for potential tenants, but once you’ve got the apartment all that generally matters is that you pay your rent on time and in full. The landlord of one building in San Francisco recently posted a letter telling current tenants that they will have to be re-screened to make sure they are earning at least $100,000 a year and have sterling credit. [More]
Time Warner Cable Gives Superintendents Free Cable If They Snoop On Tenants
By 9.24.13
The superintendent of a Manhattan condo building says Time Warner Cable offered him a deal that was too evil to accept — get free cable TV service in exchange for, among other things, snooping on tenants to make sure they aren’t stealing cable service. [More]
Live In An Apartment? Have No Yard? You Can Still Have A Yard Sale
By 6.24.13
Now that it’s summer, that means it’s time to sell your unwanted crap while sitting in front of your home. But how do you have a yard sale without a yard or a garage sale without a garage? Don’t worry. There are ways to sell your crap if you live in an apartment. [More]
San Francisco Landlords Plead Guilty To Making Tenants’ Lives Miserable
By 6.20.13
The couple who took over ownership of a San Francisco apartment building in 2006 wanted their tenants out. That can be very inconvenient for the tenants, but it happens. The tactics they used during their two-year reign of tenant terror were unusual, ranging from stealing and trashing tenants’ belongings to cutting floorboards, setting fires, and forging e-mailed death threats from tenants to their own attorneys. [More]
NYC Unveils Newest In Teeny Tiny Living With Winning Micro-Unit Apartment Design
By 1.23.13
Just a few months ago, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg put out a request to designers to try and figure out how to shrink down an apartment to its legally smallest size for a new “micro-unit” building, and now the winning design has been chosen in all its teeny tiny glory. It’ll be perfect for anyone sipping a small soda on their cute little couch, see? [More]
Man Lives In Tiny Apartment For 15 Years So Of Course Now Authorities Kick Him Out
By 1.18.13
If you think the real estate market is bad here in the U.S., can you imagine subjecting yourself to an apartment so small you couldn’t stand up in it for 15 years? That’s a lot of years worth of stooping and otherwise being cramped as all get out. A man in Paris has been dealing with cramped quarters for years but now that authorities are on his case, he’s been booted from his tiny abode. [More]
Should Your Landlord Be Able To Decide If Your Significant Other Can Stay The Night?
By 9.10.12
Remember the days of Three’s Company, when the only way a man could convince the landlord to let him stay in an apartment with two single women was by pretending to be gay? Even when I first moved to New York in the mid-’90s, more than a few landlords told me I could only have male roommates and that female overnight guests were frowned upon. But times are changing and most people just expect their landlord to butt out, so long as they aren’t knocking down walls or installing hot tubs in the bathroom. But there are still some people out there that don’t want any unwed hanky-panky going on under their roof. [More]
