Sunday, August 19, 2012

Sunday, August 19

20% of Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village Buildings Have Had Bed Bug Infestations?

Well, that's what the TA suggests from tenant feedback, reports the latest issue of Town & Village. In order to combat such infestations and inform tenants, TA President John Marsh stated that tenants will be receiving a TA report (about 14 pages long!) with info on prevention, etc. (Shouldn't management be doing this?) Meanwhile, CWCapital spokesperson Brian Moriarty noted that management has a full-time pest control contractor who deals with bed bug infestations. Moriarty is quoted in T&V: "There have been incidents of bedbugs at PCVST over the years, in keeping with what one would normally expect in a community of this size in New York.... All cases that have been reported have been successfully contained and resolved." A comment at bedbugregistry.com offers this perspective on Stuy Town's 280 First Avenue, however: "Management did not notify neighbors adjoining the 2 bed bug infested apartments on the 10th floor of the infestations. A neighbor had to do that. The new infestation on the 10th floor has now spread to apt directly downstairs on the 9th floor. Bedbugs were detected in the master bedroom mattress and electrical outlet. The 9th floor apartment is being treated as of this past week."

According to the article, Marsh suspects a correlation between bed bug infestations and the use of Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village apartments as illegal hotels, the latter being a continual problem that management seems slow in resolving. (How about, first, slipping in notices, along with those proclaiming the latest Oval events, on the illegality setting up hotels in PCVST and the consequences of doing so?)

DOG TALES

This week's T&V also contained a pertinent letter responding to an opinion piece about how wonderful dogs are in the complex and how everyone should relax and enjoy the considerable perks of having dogs around. This is the future:

"... on my floor we now have four dogs (two in one apartment). When I get off the elevator, it sounds like a kennel and smells like a latrine. All the dogs yap in unison, one pet owner lets her dog go in the apartment, another apartment houses two dogs that bark and hurl themselves at the front door, which sounds like someone is banging to get out."

As for a dog run in Stuy Town.... Yesterday, I went to Tompkins Square Park for a change of scenery, and, indeed, there was considerable barking from the dogs in that dog run, noise that would bounce all around the buildings of Stuy Town if such a dog run was here. And then there's the smell....

Speaking of dogs, the banning of pitbulls and pitbull mixes in Stuy Town seems to be a joke. These two photos were taken today, Sunday, within a period of an hour. Perhaps these two dogs do not have any pitbull in them. What do you think?

The latter dog and his owner were soon chased away from the Oval Fountain by Public Safety, btw. But not off the property, as I assume this is another registered Stuy Town dog.

THE MOAT AT CAFE KUBRICK

Most of the work has been finished on the patio extension of Cafe Kubrick. (I may have to start calling this "Cafe Ugly" pretty soon, though, as it really is a designing and decorating disaster.) The fissure is still there, however, and waiting for something. Perhaps it's a mini sewer. Wouldn't that be appropriate. Then, again, it's been a while since we've seen a cabbage patch.

ANOTHER PROJECT

Drainage work near Stuy Town's 21 Oval. (This area has been worked and reworked at least half a dozen times since Tishman Speyer took over.) We'll see how effective this will turn out to be, but it looks like fun for the kiddies to sail toy or paper boats down in rainy weather.

But tenants, you are not supposed to throw your strawberries in it!

PETER COOPER'S RECYCLING AREAS

A blog reader sends in these photos of Peter Cooper Village's recycling area. Stuy Town residents, view and weep!

40 comments:

Anonymous said...



??? where in pcv is this? NOT IN our building. :(((

nice shot of the bugs STR.

Anonymous said...

601 E. 20th

Anonymous said...

Can bedbugs infest the laundry rooms? Considering the washers only use a cup of water for a full load, I don't think they would even drown in one of those machines. I always disinfect the machines before I use them, but now I'm worried that bed bugs may survive if somebody had used the machines and whose clothes/bedding was infested. My building is full of students, transients and the "rolling luggage" crowd (sometimes they store their luggage in the laundry room or hide it in the bushes outside and come back for it later!). I'm getting very worried about all these cooties!

Anonymous said...

So one fifth of the apartments here have bedbugs? Charming. Thanks a lot Rose and CW for allowing this place to literally decline to the level of a fleabag motel! Good work, boys. Ever considered going into different lines of work where you might actually be able to do the job? School crossing guard? Bus driver? Truck driver? Anything except run a major property because that is clearly beyond your capabilities. What total incompetents we have running this dump.

Anonymous said...

601 is a building used by management to try out some of their various ideas. My bet is that none of the other 20 PCV buildings have this. It is not in our building.

Anonymous said...

Pretty sure that they bedbugs get killed in the dryer. Of course, I don't use the dryer because it shrinks all of my clothes too much.

Why am I itching all the time now?!?

Stuy Town Reporter said...

>>So one fifth of the apartments here have bedbugs?<<

Have had. Possibly.

Anonymous said...

Those bins look very nice...until they get filthy and ratty and start falling apart like the original cheap melamine-coated pressboard cabinets they put in.

Can you imagine what these things are going to look like when people start pelting the doors with wet stuff?

Anonymous said...

no new recycling bins in my pcv building either

Anonymous said...

"Can you imagine what these things are going to look like when people start pelting the doors with wet stuff?"

Put everything (except glass) down the chute. Give the porters a break and keep in mind that it doesn't get recycled anyway! It is disqualified from recycling because it is so filthy and contaminated. Don't waste your time or efforts taking anything down to the "recycling" places in these buildings. They are totally for show in order to "conform" to Sanitation's rules, but they don't conform, so it is a total and absolute waste of time and effort. If you don't believe me, call the NYST and ask them.

Anonymous said...

Is there anyone who doesn't think that those are pit bulls or that they don't have a lot of pit bull in them?

The Management here is beyond a joke. It is negligent in the extreme.

Tommyboy said...

It's ok the bed bugs are market raters. The patio fissure has to be seen to fully appreciate what can only be interpreted as mgt's ineptitude..if they truly want the oval to be a quiet zone, why not ban vehicular traffic.......yes cars. At a very least 1 way direction only.

Chris said...

1 in 5 apts have had bedbugs? That's an epidemic and hard to believe. There are nowhere near that number listed in bedbugregistry.com.

It is undoubtedly a real problem but 20%? Give me some backup on that, please!

Anonymous said...

I live at 400 East 20th Street. This weekend NOT ONE washing machine was working. NOT ONE. I called Stuy Town, they sent an electrition. I called Mac Gray they could not of been more rude and told me they can't tell me when someone will come but it will be sometime this week he assumes. So our building has NOT ONE working washer until then. Stuy Town said we can walk to another building and they will buzz you in. Ok - they how do I get into the washing room? Who can we talk to about our contract with Mac Gray? And is it legal to have to working washers?

Anonymous said...

They could make the bins out of Swarovski crystal and it still wouldn't make a difference. It's the SIZE of the bin and the FREQUENCY at which they are emptied.

Bone heads...

Anonymous said...

Re the photo of the new "Oval Roman Aqueduct" near 21 Oval: the area just beyond "strawberry fields" in the photo is where you can spot Oval Malaria, i.e., standing water/mosquito breeding pond. That water has been standing for days there. I guess the master craftsmen who worked on the patio at Cafe Kubrick were also behind this engineering marvel.

Anonymous said...

"Give the porters a break and keep in mind that it doesn't get recycled anyway!"

You have any proof of this? I dutifully bring clean bottles, cans and other stuff down there with the expectation that it will be recycled.

As for giving the porters a break, who do you think carries out the bags of trash? It doesn't get any lighter or cleaner when you dump it down the chute.

Anonymous said...

"Those bins look very nice...until they get filthy and ratty and start falling apart like the original cheap melamine-coated pressboard cabinets they put in.

Can you imagine what these things are going to look like when people start pelting the doors with wet stuff?"

Does anyone have any suggestions for a better solution? What type of recycling bins did they have in the other rental buildings you have lived in?

Anonymous said...

"Does anyone have any suggestions for a better solution? What type of recycling bins did they have in the other rental buildings you have lived in?"

Stainless steel plate. Bugs can't eat it or infest it. It can be disinfected completely to avoid vermin. It will last indefinitely.

This prototype is just a refreshed version of the poor construction that was installed a half dozen years ago.

Anonymous said...



Pitbulls and Bedbugs? ahhhhhh let me have two of these rentals!

I can't wait to move in.

Anonymous said...

"You have any proof of this? I dutifully bring clean bottles, cans and other stuff down there with the expectation that it will be recycled."

Go ahead, knock yourself out. Once your nice clean stuff gets mixed in with dirty, unwashed stuff, it all goes in the landfill. As for the porters, schlepping the recycling bags is extra work for them. The stuff that goes down the chute goes through the compactor. Sure the porters have to tie up the compactor bags and dump them out for Sanitation, but the extra bags of "recycleables" have to be dealt with separately and in a different way. Extra work for overworked, underpaid people. No wonder they don't have time to vacuum halls or mop stairs. On top of that, they are expected to clean the laundry rooms.

Anonymous said...

These binds aren't going to solve ANYTHING unless they properly staff the buildings and that will never happen because Andrew MacArthur is too busy building a strip mall in the Oval.

Anonymous said...

I was talking to a security guard about the Pitt bulls and he says its a problem. New tenants are getting them without registering them. A lot of people didn't even know there was a dog policy. The leasing office doesnt tell them. Now Stuy Town is registering the ones caught. What's the point of having rules if we lack the leadership needed to inform tenants and enforce policies. Andy Mac's wasteland.

Anonymous said...

“Does anyone have any suggestions for a better solution? What type of recycling bins did they have in the other rental buildings you have lived in?”
Besides having just one huge dumpster, I really don’t know what the solution could be when the student/transient/hotel demo that place is being marketed here to would simply overwhelm any type of re-cycle area arrangement. How can one expect any type of sanity and order when many of these people just dump their re-cycle AND non-recycle trash in ANY container and when those are full, just dump it on the side or don’t even to bother to enter the area, just leave it outside the door. I’m almost there with Anony 10:25 PM at this point. And Anony 9:29 AM, I believe that many tenants do not want their building stigmatized so they don’t report it to the bed bug register blog. Also, the typical transient tenant whose rent is subsided by their parents, they don’t report the infestation either on that blog, they just lawyer up to get their security back and just move out. I have known two instances of such scenarios. The TA will be presenting more info soon re this issue (BB), lets’ wait and see.

Stuy Town Reporter said...

>>New tenants are getting them without registering them.<<

But there are also REGISTERED pitbulls. Amazing, isn't it? And that's because there appears to be a gigantic loophole in registering one's dog. The owner puts down what breed the dog is. What verification is there?

Anonymous said...

Let's just face it. This place is totally UNmanaged. It is a free-for-all transient, do-as-you-wish property. Neither Rose nor Charlie McCarthy (or whatever his stupid name is at CW) have any way of managing and controlling the QOL here and we just have to think of ourselves and deal with it. Filthy laundry rooms with non-functional washers, rodent-infested "recycling" areas and students and rent-by-the-day (or hour?) transients flooding in and out with their rolling bedbug carriers. If anyone is stupid enough to buy this property, well, good luck to them! It's a disaster and totally beyond the competency or Adam Rose or Charlie whatever to do anything about it now except collect rents. A rent strike by the permanent residents would really hit them where it hurts, but I doubt that will happen. Don't expect it to get better, because it won't. Just do your laundry offsite, shove your garbage down the chute and hope that you don't have a bunch of beer-swilling students move in above, below or next door to you. That will probably happen though and then it's time to call the 13th Pct and tell them you don't care about sweetheart deals with Rose, you'll go to Commish Kelly if necessary about the lack of enforcement from the 13th Pct. There has to be a point when we take matters into our own hands to the extent legally possible and remember that we are paying taxes to give us police protection, even if it is the sweetie-pie 13th.

Tommyboy said...

The bins look oddly similar to the self storage bins, just a thought, who is renting these? are they bed bug infested?

Anonymous said...

I have NEVER run into any issues with pit bulls in Stuy Town, and I wish people would stop targeting them because it's easy. You know what I want to ban? Little, fluffy, dirty, yappy lap dogs that no one thinks need to be trained. They are loud and awful and I want to kick them. Their owners let them run around and then say it's ok because they are "friendly." Keep the pit pulls, rottweilers, chows, German shepards, dobermans, etc, and ban barking rats with fur.

Stuy Town Reporter said...

Rules are rules. Pitbulls and pitbull mixes are not allowed in PCVST.

Anonymous said...

Rules against noise, parties, drugs, illegal walls, and loads of others are being ignored every day. Now that the students have moved back in for the semester I am sure nobody will think about dogs when they cant sleep because of a keg party. This place is the wild wild west for college kids.

Anonymous said...

And I HAVE run into issues with Pitt Bulls. There's an alarming trend of young females acquiring these dogs as if they are the new pet to own. They don't know how to control them, they don't know how to walk them, the dogs weigh just as much as they do and drag them around.

I avoid going near them as do some of my other friends with dogs.

Anonymous said...

Is it legal for you to film people and their dogs on the property?

Stuy Town Reporter said...

Yes.

Anonymous said...

So you complain and petition against Rose filming concertgoers but you can film people? You are a lying hypocrite.

Stuy Town Reporter said...

Not lying and not a hypocrite. But you apparently do not read well or thoroughly or are just ignorant. Photos used for ADVERTISING purposes need a signature of the person in the photo. Therefore, management needs such signatures, but citizen Joe does not unless he uses a photo for a similar purpose. Got it now?

Anonymous said...

One shot is a close crop of a dog, and in the other shot the people are blurred beyond recognition. I'm positive STR is not using the photos to rent his apartment so no, he's not a hypocrite.

Anonymous said...

Those recycling bins in the photographs look like they are very tall. I am barely five feet tall and cannot reach the top row of dryers in the laundry room! Am I supposed to bring a chair to stand on so I can put my recycling in the bins? Oh my! And I always thought the high shelves at Associated were a problem, though I can usually find a tall person to help me out there! The obstacles never end for us vertically challenged folks! LOL!

Anonymous said...

What everybody should know. Bed bugs will be a problem in NYC for the foreseeable future.

Although our landlord bears the cost of bed bug testing and treatment, the tenant bears the cost and effort of prepping for treatment, which can get very expensive and can run in the thousands of dollars. The prep involved is mind bogglingly exhausting and detailed.

Once bed bugs get established in an apartment building, they can be very difficult to get rid of.

Anonymous said...

Re: Bedbugs. You certainly are correct in saying that they are hard to get rid of. I have friends who live in Long Beach, LI, in a very posh apartment building. They have bedbugs because somebody in an adjacent apartment brought them in from some hotel stay somewhere. They have had the exterminators in twice; have had to throw out almost all of their soft furnishings and guess what - the buggars are back. The cost in prepping, replacing furnishings has been colossal and the emotional and energy toll has been colossal too. Still they have the bedbugs and these are the cleanest people you could wish to know.

Anonymous said...

We rented an very beautiful and expensive unit in Stuy Town and were quite excited about our new residence. Upon moving in, we were immediately bitten all over our bodies by bed bugs. We immediately notified management who in turn began professional treatment. The treatment has not irradiated the bed bugs and I have had to spend over $3K dollars on hotel rooms as I am allergic to the bites. Managment will not let me out of my lease and yet I cannot live in the apartment due to the infestation. I've had to retain an attorney for reparations.