The votes have been tallied on all the Curbed sites; here now: the Renters Week 2011 Horror Story Finalists. One of these guys will win a free month's rent (up to $2,500), funded jovially by Curbed. Let the voting begin!
Editor's Note: This poll will be open until Monday, Nov. 14 at noon EST. Voting irregularities will be strictly policed.
Here's a refresher of all the worthy contenders:
NYC: A nunnery-turned brothel:
"A few months after moving in my bell was constantly being rung by strange men, some of whom would show up and say they have an appt. I quickly figured out that new tenants had moved into apartment #2G across the hall and by tenants I mean hookers."
Syracuse, N.Y.: Bedbugs for three months:
"It turns out, EVERY BUILDING in the complex is infested. [...] The landlord refused to pay for the extermination, and told us if we refused to pay the $1,400, we would be evicted. Livid, my boyfriend and I called the health department (who said they could not help us) and the town code enforcer, who, as it turns out, was friends with the landlord. The property manager’s husband, who is head of maintenance, got into a verbal altercation with my boyfriend, calling him a liar because the exterminator only found one bug in our place. We had bed bugs for three months."
Washington D.C.: Fifteen mice and lots of rain:
"We have caught 15 mice in 2 months because their solution is to put cotton in a few holes (we have a visible hole in our living room that faces the street that light comes in). Our air conditioning unit was held up with duct tape and was like listening to a lawn mower every night [...]. One night, in bed, we got rained (poured) on from a leak (hole) in our roof that the owner tried to fix himself instead of repairing it (800 year old on the roof - really?). They patched the hole...a week later, so we had to sleep on the floor in our living room for a week. Meanwhile, the water damage went all down the walls and the (lead) paint chipped off and ruined the carpet and some of our clothes."
Chicago: Pimps and rats:
"The neighbor, by the way, is a pretty cool looking guy. He's got fresh polos and drives a nice SUV and has lots of cute girls hanging around his place. His eyes were always a little glassy but he kept to himself. It turns out the pimp-esque guy was actually a pimp. And the cute girls hanging out were "working" in the second floor apartment. We thought the drama was over when the police raided and the brothel was dismantled (there was nothing left but a bed and some high heels) -- but then we got rats. Big, Chicago sized alley rats, that literally ate a cavernous hole into a loaf of bread on our kitchen counter. Aside from the rats and prostitutes, did I mention the guys working at the restaurant on the first floor check out my booty EVERY time I come home?"
Detroit: Snow and epic mold:
"I ended up having to buy spray sealant to seal all the cracks in ALL the windows. I didn't notice this when I looked at the apartment because it wasn't snowing that day and the landlord told me that the heat was turned off until a tenant moved in. Over the next 2 months, my water heater would go out at least once a week and I would have to call the maintenance man to please relight my water heater...this went on for two months until the landlord finally decided to replace the stupid thing. Fast forward to July of 2011... I'm standing in the kitchen on July 31st, when I noticed a small leak coming from the kitchen ceiling, which was odd since my apartment was on the top floor and it was blazing hot outside-no rain. Within 15 minutes, my entire kitchen ceiling collapsed."
Los Angeles: Hot toilet water and bees:
"Once, our toilet decided to stop working. [Del] literally left us without a pot to piss in for a few days. When we were finished with our business, we'd have to fill a bucket with water and pour it into the bowl to make our waste flush away. He sent over a handyman to fix it who showed up with a six pack and chain smoked. He left all his butts in our still unfixed toilet. After a while, he mickey-moused something together so that our toilet worked but it had hot water in it so that our asses would sweat when we sat down. It took about 2 weeks to get the whole thing fixed right."
San Francisco: Mold infestation:
"After a couple of days of living there I was waking up with a sore throat and the dog was waking up swallowing really hard, something he doesn't do. I also noticed that the towels didn't dry, and when I hung the shower curtain on the wall to protect the sheetrock crumbled in my hand. Hmmm."
Seattle: A roommate who had orgies:
"I had a roommate while living in LA that worked in the entertainment industry. In addition to doing the usual annoying roommate things (coming home late and loud, leaving messes, playing bad music loudly, etc.) he had a habit of using my bed for his random hook ups when I wasn't there. He'd bring them home and do their thing in my bed then he'd let them leave and go to his bed. Never changed the sheets or apologized. The worst was when he did this with a flock of foreign flight attendants. A small orgy took place and I would have never known except that the bed was made, and I had left it unmade. Gross!"
· All Renters Week 2011 posts [Curbed National]