After Lewis and I relocate, these are things that we will always be glad to be away from:
The stifling atmosphere of New York City is not helped by its unstable weather, which can swirl from 46 to 75 in one day (as seen below in the week's forecast during Spring)!
Equally disgusting is NYC's oppressive heat during summer. It is coupled with an "Urban Heat Island" (hot layer) from the city's cars, congestion, buildings, power plants, and outdated steam generators.
That makes the air temperature 22-degrees hotter than air outside the city. Below, you'll see the temperature for October 2019 (when it should be cooler)...
Maybe it is bad feng shui.
We'll be glad to be away from supermarkets that uncaringly (and illegally) block streets when they get deliveries. Below, two of three lanes on Broadway are obstructed for hours... while unrefrigerated groceries spoil and get rotten under the hot sun. That happens repeatedly every week at hundreds of supermarkets, due to bad infrastructure designed by Neanderthals.
The city also neglects the donations that people give to the homeless and less-fortunate. As you can see, nobody cares to retrieve them. That was the situation for an entire decade! Then, many places removed the donation bins, instead of trying to properly empty them. That was unhelpful.
It will be amazing to live somewhere where nutritious food is the norm, instead of the USA's insurgence of junk food. In other countries--richer or poorer than the USA--when you mention a sandwich, it implies fresh-baked bread, shaved "real" meat, and farm-fresh toppings. In America, a sandwich implies Wonder Bread (made with processed-then-enriched, bleached GMO wheat, palm olive, preservatives, margarine, and chemicals--thus giving it a shelf life of two months!), "processed" deli meat (full of salt, water, corn syrup solids, and nitrates) from animals that were force-fed to eat corn, "Frankenwheat", growth hormones, and industrial medicines, and "cheese products" (made with processed "milk solids", food coloring, corn syrup, preservatives, chemicals, and artificial flavors).
Lewis and I will be grateful to finally live in a properly-maintained apartment--without having to pay extra exorbitant fees to have decency. My first apartment in NYC was low-quality yet overpriced at $2,400 per month. As I got smarter, my fourth apartment was a one-bedroom in a walk-up (no elevator) "prewar building" in Astoria that cost $1,500 per month. The building looked similar to this...
I will show you the poor quality that my landlord gave me... and hundreds of other tenants.
First, you must realize that I was charged more than other renters in the county because my apartment building was only 5 streets from a subway route. The closer you live to the crappy subway, the more money landlords demand in rent. It didn't matter that the subway malfunctioned every week, didn't operate on many weekends (due to unfixed problems), and that each of the stations near me closed for half a year for "renovations" that were purely cosmetic. My rent was also higher than other neighborhoods due to Astoria's desirability: cleaner than most areas (but still strewn with litter/garbage), good restaurants, parks (some don't have parks), and one of the shortest commutes into Manhattan. Sadly, that gave landlords an entitled attitude to say, "If you don't like what I choose to give you, then you can leave, and others will take your place." That NYC attitude is unchanged since the 1870s.
For 7 of the 9 years of my lease, my bathroom sink was a antiquated remnant from 1930, when the building was built! It was difficult to have even-temperature water because one knob/faucet gave cold water and the other knob/faucet gave hot water!
Look how far apart the faucets were! How could you get handfuls of even-temperature water for shaving or washing your face? That's like being forced to live in a third-world nation! Yet, thousands of overpriced apartments in America's richest city are still like that. The sink was so old that it didn't have cabinet space underneath.
The inadequate mirror (attached to the vanity door) was so low that I couldn't see myself unless I bent down. Idiotic!
It made flossing and shaving very inconvenient, so I hung a larger mirror in the hallway to use. Making things worse, there was NO electrical outlet in the entire bathroom!
Requiring extension cords, I used my hairdryer in front of the mirror outside the bathroom. It was pathetic to live like that just because a wealthy mega-landlord wouldn't upgrade his apartment building(s). The entire bedroom had only one electrical outlet! The living room had only two. For a NYC building in 2021, that was cruelly insufficient. Many things in the decrepit building were outdated from 1930: windows, window frames, railings, electric wires, light fixtures, and door handles. Many things were old and neglected from the 1960s: mailboxes, intercoms, circuit boxes, door locks, and kitchen furnishings. Disgraceful yet common in NYC.
My landlord's company owned dozens of buildings in Astoria and throughout Queens County. He collected millions of dollars, each year. Yet, he cheaply avoided investing in his infrastructure. Only when my sink broke did my landlord install a new one (which finally had a cabinet underneath).
I complained to the landlord about the outdated shower faucet & knobs... but he didn't care. I asked the Superintendent (during nine years, I had three Supers) to replace the ugly blackened grout. I only got it done once.
Seen below, I cut my leg on the shower's broken soap-dish, which was supposed to be replaced after I moved in. It never was, not even when the sink was replaced. I learned to stand a certain way whenever I took a shower.
I was unable to take baths, because the drain was always broken. Half of the time, the toilet required two flushes to do its job, which was wasteful of water. Several times, I asked the Superintendent(s) to investigate it, but the issue was not resolved. (Yet, they demanded my rent on time).
My Superintendent from Albania tried to repair my bedroom's light-switch, but he damaged the wall... and never fixed it. I was forced to put tape over the holes in the wall. Therefore, my switch looked like this. Telephone calls to his "guido" Maintenance Supervisor, then the Property Manager (lazy son of the landlord), and to the landlord's office did not accomplish anything.
Being so cheap, the landlord always hired foreigners from war-torn countries or third-world nations who were desperate for small wages. Therefore, none of the Superintendents who worked in my building (during 9 years) spoke English. That complicated any telephone calls with them, and it could be challenging to speak with them for the tiniest thing.
Like many NYC landlords--even in expensive midtown office buildings--mine never upgraded the heat radiators from 1930. He didn't even paint them before I moved in! That's what $1,500 per month buys you in NYC.
Since the furnace system was neglected/outdated, it made loud clanking noises when it was on, which was from October to May.
Most apartments do not have thermostats; heat is controlled by the Super from the cellar. None of my four apartments had thermostats. It reminded me of cities in Soviet countries where the State controlled the central heating for everyone. Heat was activated in autumn and deactivated in spring. If people got too hot (and couldn't use the antiquated knobs on the 1930s radiators), they opened windows and used electric fans... which we often did. That's why millions of New Yorkers must live with their windows open in winter! That is pathetic.
NYC's buildings notoriously have outdated furnaces and boilers that billow black plumes of pollution. NYC doesn't care.
Please use this link to learn more:
Watch these short videos to hear the sounds that the absurdly loud heating pipes made in my apartment.
It should not surprise you that the windowsills were equally bad. In the kitchen, I covered the peeling paint with aluminum foil to make it easier to clean.
The landlord sent underpaid migrant workers to paint the rooms before I moved it, but their sloppy slap-dash work peeled and cracked. Cheap.
They also left nonfunctioning doorbells in my entranceway, abandoned from the decades before the intercom was installed. The landlord was too cheap to remove them and patch-up the wall. Seen below, that broken door was the fuse box. Needing a ladder to reach it, the fuses were not aligned with the door, so the Super needed to remove the entire casing. But those uneducated painters sealed it with paint, so he needed to chip away the paint, scratch the wall, rip off the panel, change fuses, and then use new screws (he didn't give me a new panel).
The antiquated hinges and locks on my front door were also from 1930. $1,500-per-month = unsatisfactory security.
When I moved in, I complained that the "new" kitchen tiles were not laid properly. The Superintendent said, "If you don't like it, then don't live here. Somebody else will." Nobody cared to help me. Soon, the tiles shifted underfoot. Corners lifted and broke. After only one year, it looked like a slum.
The new (but cheap) stove/oven that the landlord was legally required to install was so bad that it was incapable of having more than one flame lit at a time! If I lit one burner, there was not enough gas power to ignite another! Like a third-world country, that severely reduced my ability to cook at home. Ridiculous!
If I used the oven, I could not use any of the stovetop burners! I called Consolidated Edison (ConEd) who was the gas provider, but they examined it and explained that the gas pipe was too narrow. Evidently, the landlord was so cheap that he wanted to save a few dollars and buy the cheapest pipe, which was the narrowest. (The cheapness of NYC landlords is like a pathological sickness, and it never ends). My landlord was responsible to upgrade it, yet he never did. I filed a complaint with ConEd but nothing happened. As you can see below, the main pipe also looked to be as old as 1930.
When I voiced complaints, I was told to be thankful because other New Yorkers suffered for months without cooking gas or functional ovens. Those illegal things still happen, and that's ludicrous!
Considering this modern era, it is deplorable that NYC apartments are not all equipped with kitchen ventilation fans like this...
Mine didn't have any type of ventilation hood to expel heat (from cooking) or airborne grease. In fact, my two prior apartments in Flushing and the one in Bayside also lacked that simple infrastructure. None of those landlords helped me either. Therefore, I paid extra to buy a window fan to blow out aromas/smoke/heat.
Mine didn't have any type of ventilation hood to expel heat (from cooking) or airborne grease. In fact, my two prior apartments in Flushing and the one in Bayside also lacked that simple infrastructure. None of those landlords helped me either. Therefore, I paid extra to buy a window fan to blow out aromas/smoke/heat.
The windows in my living room and bedroom were broken and did not stay open. Calls to my Superintendent(s) never fixed them because the windowsills were too old. The landlord did not want to update them. I complained to the city, but authorities said that as long as nobody could fall out, they didn't care. So, I had to prop the windows open like this. Pathetic.
Making it worse, the top halves of three windows malfunctioned and slowly slid down. (That happened at all of my friends' apartments, too). To keep insects out, I routinely checked them and pushed them up again. Lewis couldn't fix the one in the bedroom, so he clamped it shut permanently.
My outdated kitchen cabinets were from 1960... and were insufficiently small.
Seen below was the entire amount of counter space that my apartment had! How could the landlord be so pathetic yet charge $1,500 per month? How does a tenant live without kitchen counters? Under it, the bottom cabinets had unfinished surfaces.
They lacked handles, and there was only one drawer (for the entire kitchen), and it was too feeble to hold anything.
My dish-drain occupied all of the counter-space that my expensive apartment had! So, I paid extra to buy my own cooking-island and metal kitchen rack.
Seen below, I balanced a cutting-board on my stove for extra "counter-space".
The refrigerator was old and scratched, but NYC's uncaring regulations don't compel landlords to give new ones to tenants when they move-in.
Inside, it often leaked water. I set up a makeshift container to collect the drips throughout the day.
Many times, it randomly froze things! Regardless of what shelf they were on, my filtered water, eggs, meat, vegetables, or sealed cartons of almond milk... all had moments of getting frozen randomly.
The kitchen sink's drain was also broken. If I wanted to stop water from going down, I had to put a makeshift "stopper".
Friends who visited couldn't find the light-switches for the kitchen or bathroom... because there weren't any. Outdated from 1930, both ceiling lights still used pull-chains.
Whenever tenants left that building, the tightfisted landlord merely repainted the interiors to hide problems. That behavior remains from 1904, when Upton Sinclair published a whistleblowing book about NYC titled The Jungle. Any "improvements" were veneers; the millionaire landlord refused to upgrade electricity, plumbing, insulation, or quantity of wall outlets. Yet, he raised the monthly rent higher by $800 (to compete with increasing prices in Manhattan). That is despicable.
The landlord's family-run property management company owns dozens of buildings in three boroughs.
Two years ago, he spent $158 million to acquire 17 more buildings in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island's Nassau County. Then, he bought a $30 million apartment building in the Bronx. He can afford to maintain all of his apartments... but he doesn't want to. That is evil.
Despite their wealth, NYC landlords don't care about how they cruelly disrupt the lives of innocent tenants. Like slugs emerging from the dirt, they emerged from a "NYC landlord" mentality that is unchanged since 1850.
Another famously corrupt NYC landlord became the President of the United States. Just like other landlords, he said...
For them, it's merely a game of Monopoly.
For renters to get a one-bedroom apartment with a "modern" kitchen and bathroom in costs an additional ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS per month! That was like robbery to merely obtain decency. Newer or upgraded apartments on my street cost $2,600 per month...
Unlike my apartment with a separate kitchen, separate living room, and separate bedroom, those new pricier apartments only had a combined space for kitchen/living room and a bedroom. That is a downgrade in infrastructure, despite a doubled price.
Why pay $2,875 per month for 700 square-feet, as seen above? Furthermore, there is no guarantee that a newer place is built properly. Friends who got newer ones complained about cheap craftsmanship. Kitchen cabinets fell off, doors became unhinged, appliances broke, plumbing broke, and the walls were so thin that neighboring noise entered. NYC is still notorious for those rip-offs.
For renters who work 40+ hours per week to merely afford a home in NYC, they should live in something nice... not endure something inferior because there's no hope of decency. That explains why most people in NYC's cesspool relocate to new apartments every year... in unsuccessful attempts to improve their lives. It certainly explains why hordes of renters moved out of NYC during the pandemic (when they were forced to be in those homes all day). The population of New York State diminished so much that it lost a Congressional seat in the House of Representatives.
On a related topic to my crappy apartment(s), Lewis and I will never miss the overpriced crap that American industries give. I paid $190 per month for internet access and basic television. Typical of American culture, the internet provider evaded paying its corporate taxes to the government, but it billed me with monthly surcharges and fees for "the luxury" of having a remote control, a cable-box (outdated and pathetically big for this modern era)...
...and there are extra costs for the ability to USE the cable box, the ability to record shows, a modem, and actual access to the internet! It was "nickel and dime" robbery. Their attitude: "Sure, you can buy the service, but now we have extra charges so that you can utilize it like a normal person".
Go here to learn about them:
Many businesses in NYC add several hidden fees, like this...
Despite the exorbitant fees, my cable-box and internet both malfunctioned often. Please watch these short videos...
Go here to learn about the similar scams by Consolidated Edison for overpriced NYC electricity...
Meanwhile, ConEd gives substandard service that is like a third-world nation...
Here's another tale...
My landlord was legally required to have an exterminator visit his buildings, each month. That did not happen. Whenever the exterminator was scheduled to arrive, he oddly always chose a weekday (when most people are at work). He also requested that residents be at home for several hours, to be there to let him into their apartments. (That was his tactic to avoid doing his work). I asked the Super to use his spare key to let the exterminator into my home (while I was at work), but the exterminator often did not show up.
When residents signed-up for exterminator visits, he usually removed the paper and then pretended that nobody signed-up. What were we paying for?!
On the topic of bad service (that we paid for), FedEx and UPS deliverymen have a bad habit of not fulfilling their jobs. I often saw them sleeping in their trucks, instead of delivering packages. Then, they left notes on people's doors, claiming that nobody had been home. Then, they gave all the parcels to a random "pick-up point" (usually a local drugstore or delicatessen). People who paid for home-delivery had to leave their homes and walk several blocks to retrieve their packages! Who wants to come home from work (especially in bad weather) and realize that you have to trek across 8 streets to retrieve the package that you paid to be delivered to your home?! FedEx and UPS are multi-national conglomerates, yet nobody supervised those issues to see how often deliveries were merely dumped. Evidently, "efficiency supervision" in America is rare.
Making things worse, many people suffered theft as their packages and parcels were pilfered by employees at the UPS/FedEx Collection Points, or by the delivery personnel! Initiating a Lost Package Claim with UPS and FedEx is often a horror. Unlike Amazon and (Germany-based) DHL, they don't have their own photographs of deliveries. When you report that something was stolen from inside your parcel, they demand multiple photographs or they try to visit your home to inspect the box. That's because they do not have a claim classification for Theft... only Lost Package and Damaged Package. (It's similar to how the MTA subway denies delays but admits to train traffic causing slower speeds). Instead of admitting to pilferage by their employees, they try to blame the shippers for inadequate packaging/sealing... as if the missing item fell out (and somehow the box was hastily resealed). When their automatic emails inform victims of Claim Denials, the reasons are never specific and necessitate further phone calls to Customer Service Call Centers in third-world countries. That's what you get when paying for home-delivery shipping in the USA: it's like a third-world country.
We will be glad to avoid the notorious bad customer service that wealthy corporations give their clients. Any American will attest to that.
We will be thankful to be away from overpriced buildings that lack civilized conveniences. My building's garbage chute was not functional during my 9 years. Instead of easily being able to dispose of garbage...
...I had to go downstairs, outside onto the sidewalk, down into the cellar, and then use my key to get back inside the building and go upstairs to the fourth floor again. Why pay for a building equipped with a trash chute... that never works?!
As you might expect, the electricity malfunctioned--in all of my apartments (not the condo). In my Astoria apartment, the living room's ceiling light repeatedly killed my lightbulbs. I eventually got tired of unscrewing the glass cover to change lightbulbs. However, when a bulb exploded overhead, I got scared and started using it again! What kind of crappy electrical fuses did my landlord allow?! Repeated calls to the Super and landlord were fruitless.
When the antiquated fuse boxes blew (often in summer), I had to find/call my Superintendent to access the cellar and reactivate my fuse box. If he wasn't home, I had to wait in the dark (in summer without air conditioning) for him to arrive.
Due to inadequate fuses, I was never able to use both air-conditioners in my living room and bedroom at the same time. That's really pathetic. Inventively, I hung curtains in every doorway to contain the cool air in whichever one room I occupied.
Before bedtime, I had to turn off the AC in my living room and turn on the one in my bedroom. In summer, Lewis and I would soon be sweating in the living room (due to non-existent insulation) while waiting for the bedroom to cool off. The lack of insulation in my prewar building let the cool air escape through the walls and window panes.
I was on the top level. Since the roof didn't have insulation, the brick building baked in the summer sunshine. When NYC reached 90-100 degrees, it was unbearably hot. When the antiquated electricity caused fuse boxes to blow, everyone's air-conditioning failed... until the Super answered his cellphone and arrived (from wherever he was) to fix it. That usually took a few hours!
All of my apartments in NYC were inside redbrick buildings, and they all lacked proper insulation, so they were like brick-ovens! That is torture.
(Seems unchanged since the 1880s era of tenement housing).
Our friend in Astoria paid $2,600 per month for rent, but the electrical circuitry in his building was so bad that he couldn't operate his air-conditioner and microwave at the same time! It was like living in a third-world country. It is especially bad because NYC forces people in Astoria to use subway trains from 1974 with bad air-conditioning. So, after residents walked home (and walked upstairs), their hot homes were disgusting to endure... every night.
When an elderly tenant with a mandatory respirator moved into the building, she began summoning the fire department and police whenever the electricity died in our building. That finally prompted our lecherous landlord to upgrade the fuse boxes in the cellar... but not the fuses in each apartment.
Larger buildings and businesses on the main streets suffered the same inferior infrastructure: banks, coffeeshops, laundromats. Click this image to make it larger and clearer...
Since landlords are not required to replace broken window-screens, we patched the worn parts ourselves.
Noise pollution from never-ending construction in the area was disruptive. For 12 of 13 years in Astoria, we were forced to hear demolition/construction noise. Uncaring about negatively impacting the quality of life on our street, one realtor developer elongated the noisy/dusty process by demolishing one building at a time. One per year... like dominos. Demolition, wrecking existing foundations, jackhammering, laying new foundations, hammering steel pillars, metalwork, welding, drilling, sewage, carpentry, and machinery to hoist things. The noise often began earlier than the legal mandate of 8 AM. In addition, the destruction of homes on parallel streets and their replacement with apartment buildings added to the noise pollution. Watch these short videos (throughout several years). Turn the sound on...
Such construction wasn't fun to walk past, either.
Even when we moved to the edge of the neighborhood, the noise pollution of unending overdevelopment was there: several hours per day of every week. Please watch these short videos (and turn the sound on)...
You cannot imagine how much dust we had to clean (every month of our lives), due to that! It was torturous and like a third-world nation.
Next to my apartment was a Senior / Retirement Living Home. Occupants never had serenity (due to the noise), but they were mostly immigrants so the authorities didn't care. However, they did possess a small peaceful garden. Keeping themselves fit and agile, they planted flowers and a vegetable garden.
Alas, it was ripped up and jackhammered away. It was replaced by another building. The vibrations from the noisy construction work shook our entire apartment!
After Lewis and I moved across the neighborhood to a condominium, we were protected against some of those problems. But the "luxury condo" suffered from immense embezzlement of public funds (that were never resolved in 3 years), and it did many things cheaply with inferior results.
Hallways had outdated carpets and decor from 1992. The intercoms were broken in everyone's homes, so the doormen at the Front Desk relied on cellphones. Cables (yes the USA still stupidly uses cables) for television and internet modems were inside the walls but they were old/damaged, so new residents had to have holes drilled in their doorways to install new cables... that were stapled to the edges of their walls.
Exhaust fans for kitchens and bathrooms had no air filters. Essentially, the builders put a "hole" in everyone's home that permitted dust, pollen, odor, and pollution to enter from outside. Lewis and I attached our own filters, and they blackened with "dirt" every month! (due to NYC's filthy air pollution and never-ending construction dust).
After Northeaster Storms, frigid winter gales of wind, annual hurricane season, and torrential rainstorms, there was so much pollution blown into our filters that they turned black! Yuck! Whenever the winds blew smoke from a wildfire in California or Canada, it mixed with NYC's dirty air quality and lingered for days... also blackening our air filters!
Here is a photo of the air vents at our local post office: neglect is widespread in the USA...
Our building's fresh water pipes lacked filters, and NYC's 100-year-old pipes allowed cruddy water to enter our home. Every month, we had to scrub our faucets to remove black muck! That was the same unhygienic problem at my prior apartments in NYC.
It was like a third world nation. Anybody in NYC knows to only drink tap water after it is filtered, and you must change filters within half the normal time.
Months after we moved in, residents told us that the area behind the condo was supposed to be for residential enjoyment, as depicted below...
But it was always neglected, unfurnished, lacked greenery (except for half-dead potted pines), and was only unlocked for use twice a year.
The front looked the same way: unused and dilapidated... for no reason.
That is typical at most places in NYC.
Our monthly Maintenance Fees were also supposed to provide a sauna (it never functioned)...
...shuttle bus to the subway (the driver failed to come to work once per week until protests ensured coverage by a taxi company on those mornings), and an enclosed swimming pool. But, in another example of greed, the builders were so cheap that the enclosure was done badly, and the pool could not withstand winter. Making it worse, the condo only allowed it to be open from May until September... because they were too cheap to pay for lifeguards and maintenance. Then, their cheapness reduced the available hours, and they closed the pool before 6pm... so people couldn't use it in the evening! Every year, their cheapness and lack of readiness delayed the pool from opening for 1-2 months! It was laughable! As another insult to residents, the Dog Park was allowed to deteriorate into a mud hole.
After we lived there for two years, the condo finally renovated its Community Room, which had been shuttered for five years. Despite costing $50,000, the room's furnishings looked cheap like the type used in retirement homes! The "reading area" was merely one chair and one bookcase. The room looked stale, and few residents wanted to use it. That's what we overpaid to have in a "luxury condo" in NYC's pricey neighborhood.
The building lacked eateries... and that is typical throughout NYC. Builders in NYC only care about squeezing as much rent money as possible from tenants, and they don't spend to install things to improve anybody's life. The L-shaped lobby was designed with abundant space to hold a small coffee counter, perhaps looking like this...
Many residents suggested it to the Board of Managers, but the space was always barren.
The Board didn't want to spend money to make money. Acting like typical NYC landlords and business owners, they only created scams to get money. The Board approved an unnecessary "inspection and renovation" of the exterior. It lasted for two-years! Somebody's friend was hired to provide huge amounts of unnecessary scaffolding, and another friend was paid to do the construction work. For 24 months, residents were forbidden to use their balconies because NYC Safety Codes said they couldn't be used while scaffolding ropes covered most of the building. Of course, the labor was done by underpaid Hispanic immigrants, and all of the cash was taken by the white men who owned the construction company. They merely scanned the exterior and made random cutaways into balconies to replace portions of concrete. They didn't try to hide their phony process; the same size cutaways occurred in the same pattern: every three apartments. The whole scenario was a scam to make the condo pay for unneeded work. When the work was finally done, an extra $700,000 was missing from the budget, and tenants filed lawsuits while others vacated. A new board-member located a suspiciously anonymous bank account with $50,000 in it, but the Board claimed that they had no idea who created it. Before more research could find more "hidden accounts", that board-member was bullied at home and harassed at her job until she left.
Then, the Board wanted to spend $1 million to repave the driveway, patch-up the tennis court, paint new parking lines in the garage, and "fix railings" along the property. Residents gushed with objections to that ridiculous cost. Meanwhile, when residents suggested increasing the salaries of the underpaid porters and doormen, the Board cancelled the idea. As I said, cheapness in NYC is a diseased mentality, and it's just as evil as greed.
We weren't the only condo or luxury residence tower with those problems. In NYC, most people suffer despite paying extra for alleged "luxury apartments". Please read the complaints below (seen online for various hi-rise buildings in Astoria and Long Island City. Click them to make each bigger/clearer...
So, it doesn't matter where you relocate to in NYC, it is mostly shitty.
You must pay 5-times the price to achieve decency.
People overpay but they still get ripped-off. Landlords and employers always expect to have an over-saturated market of applicants, so they mistreat their tenants and employees. They lure them with false information, they make fake promises to resolve issues, and they don't care if you realize that they are swindlers.
Please watch this quick video that personifies landlords' arrogance and lack of accountability...
Due to NYC's governmental corruption since 1852, many landlords are slumlords who are allowed to accumulate hundreds of safety or health violations, instead of being compelled to fix their problems.
Another form of noise pollution occurred daily by ambulances and fire trucks. They used sirens but drove at a slow pace (as if paid by the hour). It elongated the blaring noise from their sirens, as they slowly passed. Turn the sound on in these videos...
Emergency vehicles in Europe drive faster and refrain from using their sirens. If they do, it's for short bursts.
It will be nice to live somewhere that protects against identify theft and "information selling". In the pro-corporate USA, companies are not mandated to request your permission before disclosing your personal data. Instead, you must figure out how to request that they don't. In many situations, you must renew that request each year.
Due to unbridled greed and overall uncaring in America, medical offices, Human Resource Departments, and conglomerates routinely "lose" people's private information via Data Breaches and are hacked by thieves who steal personal identities, social security numbers, login passwords, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses.
In the images below, nearly all are American companies that could've afforded to invest in data protection... if they cared.
As a consequence, a plethora of dubious enterprises try to make you pay to regain your privacy...
As a consequence, a plethora of dubious enterprises try to make you pay to regain your privacy...
...yet dozens of them unscrupulously reveal your data.
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