Bed bugs threaten romance; co-op board cares about your unpaid parking tix, and more!

By A. Ready  | September 27, 2010 - 11:31AM
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A daily tour around the web through the eyes of a NYC vertical dweller:

  • Traditionally, first floor units have been a tough sale, with many purchasers unwilling to even consider them.   Not to be deterred by the jail cell ambience of window bars, CurbedNY reports, some brokers “are emphasizing the value that some people often miss out on due to overlooking first floor residences. They are often cheaper with better layouts and higher ceilings.” (CurbedNY, NY1)
  • Are bedbugs eliminating your itch to date?  A blogger for the Wall Street Journal writes: “The pests have become a sort of anti-Cupid for city singles, in some cases slowing the progress of budding relationships and in others bringing romance to a dead stop.”  There’s more: “It’s still easier to get herpes than bedbugs (one in five Americans has herpes; about one in ten New Yorkers has bedbugs).”  Which would you rather have?   (WSJ)
  • Habitat Magazine reports on co-op boards and sponsors using criminal background checks to weed out undesirable potential purchasers. Glen Kotowski, a managing agent for a 1,844 unit complex, calls them 'preventive maintenance.'  "Those checks so far have turned up nothing overly dramatic but useful nonetheless," says the article. "One prospective applicant, for example, had warrants out for his arrest for failing to pay his parking tickets. While hardly earth-shattering, the information helped the co-op the board in reviewing the application. After all, asks Kotowski: 'If he can't pay his parking tickets on time, what makes you think he would pay his maintenance on time?'"  (Habitat)
  • There’s been a proliferation of city patios and rooftops where you can down a drink, or many.  The New York Times is reporting that residents in neighborhoods from the East Village to LIC are increasingly agitated over the largely unregulated spaces. “‘People just get a load on as they do at any bar,” one resident seethes to the Times, “but the fact that they’re right under a bedroom window, right outside my kitchen window, with the kind of loud behavior and cursing that goes on — I’ve got the baby in my arms, saying, ‘Hey, could you please keep it down?’ and they say, ‘Oh, well, why don’t you move?’” (NYT)
  • Clearly we were confused when we thought that new development had come to a standstill in the city.  The New York Observer is reporting that “seven bids have been made for the first phase of Hunters Point South, a planned 6,000-unit housing complex in Queens.”  But as the Observer points out, this thing isn’t going to be built tomorrow, and as affordable housing it may actually be able to get financing.  (NYO)
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