The Secret Life of Doormen & Contractors: The murky world of luxe Manhattan Coops

I almost made non cancellable reservations for 1/17. I’m beyond depressed for many reasons. I’m a nester, not a person who can live with things here, there, everywhere.
I allow myself to come last and am paying for it.

My desktop is frozen. My laptop doesn’t want to find networks–and I can’t write anymore

•••••••••••••••••••••••When I first moved into the building, the super was a charming, sophisticated friendly man. Yet there was something a bit off. Then I met his wife who looked like she could lead a girl gang–if the girls were all 50+ Something was really off. I told all my girl friends to be wary as he seemed to always be around.

He was fixing something in my apartment when he told me he divided the women in the building into three categories: renters who didn’t count; non-board approved owners (or people who bought their apartments when the building went coop or from the original owner known as “the sponsor”) and board approved owners.

I thought he was telling me that I was in the category of “fix things that go wrong immediately.” I didn’t understand why he didn’t separate men into categories. I wasn’t going to ask and assumed he was “old school.” Male chauvinists are truly a dying species here. I’m just old enough to remember when they ruled and don’t lament the passing of the torch.

I was right and also very wrong. I should explain that tenants are rent stabilized or rent controlled, are virtually guaranteed their apartment for life and share in improvements without paying for them. I would love to come back to life as a renter in this building now.

On New Years Eve, he tried throat kissing my friend, the soap star’s wife. She said it was beyond gross.

Several weeks after that I was leaving the building to meet that friend. Apparently I just missed a cat fight between a tenant and the super’s wife. The tenant stopped me on the street and asked if I witnessed the fight. I told her I was sorry that I hadn’t.

She told me that the super had gone into her apartment the night before and she caught him playing with her lingerie. It sounded crazy. I would have called the police. Apparently the fight was over that. She told me about her wounds from the fight and that she was going to sue. First she was going for a massage.

I slipped into professional, I work with abused women, mode and told her to go to the police station first to file a report and have them look at her bruises. She refused as she wanted a massage. “If you don’t go now, the police won’t be able to tell what bruises the wife inflicted and what the massagist might have done.”

I found this strange but stored it in the mental list of NY stories. Soon I was hearing more and more stories of the super going into women’s apartments while they slept. Sometimes they would catch him in the act. Other times they would only know when they woke up and found things in disarray or gone. Again I wondered why the women who caught him hadn’t called the police.

Each year we have annual board meeting of owners. Tenants aren’t allowed.

The board meeting that spring was filled with non board approved women owners. They all had the same story. This will sound horrible of me, but they were all mousy and plain as a board approved woman owner pointed out to me. I realized the day the super had told me about the “three classes of residents” he was really talking about who he would stalk or not.

I ‘m not sure why none called the police or had gone to the Board of Directors immediately. I agonize over everything but when the next super would come into my apartment without notice on a non emergency basis had no problems complaining. He never took jewelry or anything of value.

Woman after woman told the same story. Still they didn’t fire the super until they had to settle the lawsuit the woman who had the fight with the wife brought. She wanted me to be a witness but she had never shown me her injuries just told me about them and I refused. Not out of loyalty to the building but because I couldn’t testify to what I hadn’t seen first hand.

I think she’s basically getting free rent for the rest of her life . It’s a shame because of all the women she’s the bitchiest, biggest complainer, and person you never want to be stuck in an elevator with.

For years I tried to get the handyman and/or super to fix certain things that I thought the building was responsible for. Also I could never understand why in such a great renovation the kitchen cabinets were virtually useless, but very pretty. I recently found out that the old super had installed all these things, and the handyman and super were scared to touch them. I have fixed everything. The old super couldn’t do anything right.

A super in my building begins at 80K a year, has a free apartment–his is a two bedroom worth between 990K and 1.40Mil–free gas & electricity, free cable and welcomes all tips. Like most Manhattanites my true dream in life is to be a super. Obviously one that’s not hands on and most supers in big buildings aren’t. They do go to super school and become licensed in many subjects.

What happens in the building, stays in the building. An unwritten law. And not I think a good one.

It took a year to find a new super. Our Board found one with zilch personality, and no people skills but he’s good with floods. I would come home from work and find signs that he had been in my apartment. I would complain and be ignored.

The next post will go into what happened next.

I’m also planning to answer questions one day a week. A good one was asked yesterday that I can devote a post too.