Lease Negotiations

Lease Negotiations

In the coming months, many leases will expire. Market conditions are such that renters no longer need to accept the terms landlords dictate (renew the old lease with a $100-200 increase). Rather, renters have more power to negotiate a new lease, demanding lower rents. In case you haven't heard, we're in a recession...

If the 132 tenants share some information, we'll be more able to negotiate lower rents for ourselves. My apartment will be renegotiating our lease soon. If anyone wants any information about how it went, please hit me up. I am willing to share information, but would rather do it in person or personal email rather than posting it.

In order to negotiate the best deal possible, we'd like to share information with our fellow tenants:

1. How much rent people who recently moved into apartments are paying (include # of bedrooms).
2. How many apartments are up for renewal/renegotiation in the next few months.
3. How many people plan on staying/leaving in the next few month.

If you recently moved into the building (or know who else has), please get in touch. I'd like to exchange a couple emails or talk to people for three minutes to see what's up. Please email me: hipsterlawyer at gmail

If you are thinking about moving out or will renegotiate your lease in the next few months, please get in touch. It's super helpful to know how many vacancies the landlords are expecting; the more vacancies, the better our bargaining power because they don't want to risk an apartment laying vacant for a month.

Please send me an email (if you want to remain anonymous, I won't email you back). You can also post to the comments section of the blog anonymously. No need to post your apartment number, but please let us know how many bedrooms you have. In a week or two, I hope to have a better ideal of where the building is at. When I do, I'll be sure and post some (anonymous) statistics.

Thanks...

Please email me: hipsterlawyer@gmail

About the Friday Night Roof Party -

As a direct result of this party, emerging from all the people in our hallway at about 2 AM we heard someone trying to open our door. They were trying the door handle incessantly and we thought it was the normal confused drunk person who often wanders the halls at these affairs. I was already up because the party was extremely loud and with the people running around on the roof there was little bits of our ceiling paint falling. When we looked through the peep hole we saw three men one of which was winding up to kick our door down. His first kick against our door was hard enough to knock items off our wall. This was literally happening as we watched through our peephole. They were actually trying to kick our door down to get into our apartment. For real. Luckily the police were quick to come because they had already been called to the building several times because of this party. So I want to offer my appropriate gratitude to whoever threw that party last night.

Our building has been tagged! We live in the turf of a Southside gang!

Good news! Our building has been tagged! We live in the turf of a Southside gang!

When I asked the guy tagging our building about it on Saturday night, he and his buddies beat the snot out of me in the middle of Bedford (sorry if we woke you with all those police cars and the ambulance).

I've always wanted to be the victim of gang violence and now I have fifteen staples in my head to prove that I was! Too bad they didn't use their machetes--that would have been so rad. But not to worry, the Williamsburg machete season will be in full swing soon enough. http://gothamist.com/mt/mt-search.fcgi?IncludeBlogs=1&limit=30&search=machete

More good news: Since our landlords aren't doing anything about the graffiti on the building; Cyn Lounge caters to a young, urban clientele; and the police are totally unable to catch these guys; you might be lucky enough to be the victim of *our* gang! It's so fucking easy! You don't even need to look for them--they'll find you (after all, we do live in *their* turf).

If you want to be the victim of a gang assault, just do what I did: walk down N.5th towards our door. It's just that simple!

See you at Woodhull and good luck with rent negotiations!

containers filled with weeds and the like on the roof

Dear 132n5thers,There are numerous containers filled with weeds and the like on the roof, and I was wondering if anyone plans on using them, or if they are old and up for grabs. I am starting to grow some herbs, and in trying to save some extra cash, wanted to know if I could reuse some of the containers. Let me know. Thanks