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Scent of Your Neighbor's Habits
By
Jen Chung
Published Aug 7, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Chung
Published Aug 7, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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Did you read the NY Times Real Estate article about smelling other apartments' goings on, like their cooking, their smoking, and letting their dogs pee and think, "Wow, that's totally my apartment"? There were a bunch of great quotes. Like:
“Notwithstanding the fact that in New York everyone likes to complain about everything, as New Yorkers, we’re just not accustomed to having complete privacy in our ear-space, our sightline and our nose-space.” - lawyer Jacqueline A. Weiss
“It’s very common that in a 200-unit building, you’re going to have something smelling somewhere... We don’t let our cats and dogs run around our halls. Why should we let our veal chops?” - Prudential Douglas Elliman senior VP, Darren Sukenik
“After some letter writing, smokers do tend to be cooperative.” - Brown Harris Stevens Residential Management executive VP Paul Herman
Frankly, we don't mind the smell of veal chops - but the broccoli and other sulfur-based vegetables do literally stink. And while we could guess that cigarette smoke would be a "kiss of death" if you're selling/renting out an apartment, who knew eau de kitty cat was also up there? Usually opening up a window can help, but why does that neighbor across the hall have to leave their garbage outside their door - can't they just walk down and get rid of it like real human beings?
Have you had problems with apartment smells? What do you do about them? Gothamist has been on the receving end of some wonderful smells (our neighbors down the hall make the most delicious meals during Jewish holidays - at least, as far as we can smell) and some not so great one (cigars). And we're guilty of our culinary ambitions getting out of control (smoke detectors going off whenever we attempt to broil something), but we offer homemade chocolate chip cookies for putting up with us - and it's been working.
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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