Only In America

Ok, so I grew up in South Central Los Angeles not too far from Reverend Price's megachurch, Crenshaw Christian Center. The name of the church refers to the infamous Crenshaw Blvd or "The Shaw". Anyway, I was driving home from dropping my sister at the bus station and what do I see right here in my Harlem neighborhood? Crenshaw Christian Center East! WTF, are churches franchising now? Only in America...lol.

Can't Hustle a Hustler

This past week has been my official rite of passage into the depths of what it means to be a New Yorker. After a month of trying to be nice and understanding about the problems with my new apartment, I finally snapped! My generally sweet nature crashed head on into my motherly instinct and it was on. I woke up to feed my baby at around 2:30am and could not get the sound of my 2 year old daughter sneezing 10x in a row after sitting on my bed where there is a draft from the concealed broken window. By 5:30am, I had written a 3 page letter to management and was up exchanging profanities with my father-in-law who had been waiting for me to get pissed off. Well, in the morning my husband told me not to be angry, just hit them where it hurts...the pocket. I sent a copy of the letter to my broker just to keep her in the loop of what was going on with this place she put me in and waited a day to see what she could do. Her customer service manager said that this was between me and the landlord/management. Well, I delivered the letter at 9am and by noon everything on my list was approved to be fixed with firm dates set in place and management agreed to waive the rent.

Well, fate would have it that the way I wrote the letter my argument was that we should not have to pay for March because the apartment was not in move-in condition. The manager was confused by this because she said that we had not paid March's rent. WTF! I sent the broker over the equivalent of 3 month's rent. Security, first month and brokers fee. Come to find out that the agent whose listing this was brokered a deal with management for us to only pay the equivalent of two rent payments, but failed to pass this deal on to us. Essentially, he was pocketing a month's worth of rent. Now, I'm not going to knock his hustle, but let's just say, you can't hustle a hustler. Since he was busted, the management called and got him to send over that additional payment, but I reached out to my agent's customer service manager who had forsaken me when I needed help and informed him that I wanted the benefit of this "bargain" that was made on my behalf, unbeknownst to me. Needless to say, the listing agent was trying to change the story, his manager was feeding me some bs, and my broker was caught in the middle. At this point though, I was out for blood, so I put on my dusty lawyer hat and mashed my proverbial foot on their necks. This was on Thursday. By Friday the workers were in my apartment making the first of the many needed repairs/renovations and I was not in a position to deal with the situation further and by yesterday my general good nature had returned. I wrote the agent, my broker and their customer service manager a short email saying: "For the sake of my good karma and because [my broker] was a godsend when I needed help, I am letting this go.  Have a great weekend!".