BrickUnderground

So your apartment is getting a facelift?  Hear this:

• Plumber: "There is some water damage to the apartment below the master bathroom.” Translation:  "Changing out the fixtures and retiling ain’t gonna do it, lady.  This is a total gut job--$25-30k, which should just about cover the new roof at my beach house.”
• Contractor: "We can do central air, but we'll have to drop the ceiling..." Translation: "Your husband might develop a hunchback but you'll be cool as cucumber."
• Electrician: "I'll be there to install the fixtures tomorrow." Translation: "It will cost more to have the light put in than to actually buy the lights."

Down in the Financial District, 2 Gold Street (at Maiden Lane) is offering 2 months free rent on apartments in this full-service luxury high-rise. StreetEasy.com shows twelve available apartments, with net effective rents starting at $2,421 for one-bedrooms, $3,995 for two bedrooms, and $4,457 for three-bedrooms. This pet-friendly building has many bells and whistles, from an indoor swimming pool to a rooftop solarium with a fireplace to a children's playroom.

Bedbugged! is a weekly column by journalist and bed bug survivor Theresa Braine. For more, click here.

By fall 2009, I was sick of sleeping on the air mattress that had been my bed since shortly after my June bedbug discovery. Essentially I was sleeping on the floor. Besides literally bringing me down, it was hard on my knees every time I had to heave myself up.

I had been virtually bite free since around mid-July, except for a couple of mosquito-type welts, and I did not see any evidence of infestation, so I decided to get on with my life. I slowly started unpacking from the plastic bags, and I went about the business of procuring a new bed.

A common complaint among architects is that instead of doing the fun stuff we went to school for--like drawing pictures and designing wacky, gravity-defying buildings--we spend a lot of time on the phone putting out fires.

While frustrating, given the amount of information to be coordinated in a short period of time, not to mention the various less-than-cooperative parties with jurisdiction over a project, it is never surprising.

Dear Ms. Demeanor,

I am a diehard New Yorker - nothing about living here fazes me, not even bed bugs.  Until NOW. 

My kids share a room and that room shares a wall with a porn fanatic.  We frequently hear the bass beat and the moaning, screaming, and limited but cheesey dialogue. While my kids were in the bath the other day, my 3-year-old daughter starting screaming, "OH GOD OH YES OH GOD OH YES..." over and over.

The Product:

I love to cook and do it often even though I lack adequate counter space, having created a makeshift one by putting a butcher’s block on top of my washing machine. I have even taken a five-day, 25-hour cooking course to learn all the basic techniques in cooking as well as several ethnic cooking classes. 

But the more I know about how to cook, the less I seem to know about what to cook, as far as what constitutes “healthy eating” beyond elementary-school basics like fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

So when I heard about a kitchen ‘detox’ session taught by personal chef Gilda Mulero, I was intrigued.  The 2 1/2 hour program—about one hour and 45 minutes in the kitchen, plus 45 minutes pounding the aisles of your local grocery store--costs $350. (Mulero waived her fee for BrickUnderground).  Mulero’s worthy if somewhat vague promise: To set people up for culinary success in their kitchen.