Hello.

I'm considering a basement apartment in Manhattan on the UWS in a brownstone building. It's in the w. 80's near amsterdam. It's half underground, half street level. This is on the UWS in the 80's. I've heard stories about bugs, mice, rats, in apartments in NYC and am wondering how much I should be concerned. The apartment looked very clean when I saw it and the trash/garbage is not near this apartment either.

Let me know your experiences and concerns if possible. But please help fast as I need to make a decision very soon.

gtrekker

I think any time you deal with an apartment in an older building that is half underground you are going to have bugs and mice.

Get a good exterminater or make sure the super has it covered.

I don't mean to be rude, but this might be better suited to craigslist. I love this forum, but I fear it if it is to become a place to talk about NYC apartments.

The reason I always avoided a basement apartment had less to do with bugs and more to do with crime and lack of natural light.

I was on the 5th floor of a building that had a mouse problem. I'm sure you can find plenty of bugs of the 30th floor of some buildings.

A basement apartment for me seemed like an invitation to be robbed. The counter to that was security bars and frankly how appealing is an apartment with no sunlight and steel security bars?

the apartment is a duplex actually. Part of it is in the basement, and the other part on the first floor. I should have clarified that point in the beginning. Sorry.

And I didn't know that craigslist had a forum. Will check next time.

I wouldn't take it.
My husband used to live in Morningside Heights (Upper UPPER West Side! around 111th) during grad school, in two well-kept buildings, and he had mice in both apartments. No bugs, and never any rats (his adage was that he would try to live as high in the building as possible, because rats will only go so far (4th floor?), but mice will climb FAR higher).

I can't imagine that in a basement apartment that you'd be able to avoid mice or rats, unless the extermination efforts were constant. Given my experience of hearing mice on the floor of a 3rd floor apartment in the middle of the night, I don't think I could do a basement apartment.

Yep gtrekker2003, there is a forum on craigslist, and there are loads of posts like yours on there, with loads of answers.

http://forums.newyork.craigslist.org/?forumID=6

I agree with the others -- don't take it. Too risky.

We rented a basement apartment just as you describe as our office for years. No bugs or mice to speak of, since the rest of the building was well-kept and the owner provided a monthly extermintor visit. I think the same is true of most apartments in NYC--you can only be pest free if your neighbors have the same attitude of cleanliness.

However, we had flooding issues. Sometimes the drains in the front (below street level in front of our door) or the drain in the backyard would get clogged with leaves and debris. If we weren't there to clear it, a heavy downpour could send water into our space. We also had a few floods from a building under renovation next door.

How about a cat? If you get one, get two. The entertain each other while you aren't home by eating mice and bugs

Every apartment in NYC has bugs. If they're kept under conrol you won;t see them (they just live in the walls). If they're not kept under control you will see them everywhere. Keeping them under control is not difficult - but it does demand a serious effort in controlling nuisance factors from everyone in the building. You should have the exterminator come once per month - this is standard in NYC apartments.

Most buildings do not have mice/rats - but again they can eaily take over if even one of the tenants is not taking appropriate control measures. IMHO the only real answer for this is - a cat. (A friend of mine lived in a brownstone with a slob - took 18 months to evict him - and the mice were everywhere. Even worse then seeing live mice is seeing half dead ones squished in the traps.)

Ground floor apartments are perfectly safe as long as you have sturdy gates on every window. (You can have either the outside/planter - usually black wrought iron - ones - or the inside version - which can be more decorative and painted to match your decor. You cannot live in the apartment without gates on all ground floor windows - or if you do - you won;t be able to get theft insurance.)

Sorry - the reason for the gates is not only theft. My first apartment - in the last ice age -
we had a ground floor in the east 70's. The gate was quite sturdy - thank god - because one Saturday night at about 2am we were serenaded by a happy drunk or stoner - who was hanging and swinging and singing on our gate until the police arrived to drag him off - took about 20 minutes for them to arrive and corner him.