Tenants with Tool Belts
WHEN Margaret Smith's Park Slope apartment building developed a rodent problem, she was lucky enough to miss most of the action.
"To me it was invisible; I never saw them," she said.
That is fortunate indeed, because if she had seen them, she wouldn't have been permitted the luxury of scurrying away. She had to keep an eye on the traps, and alert someone if anything was caught. Ms. Smith, a librarian at New York University, does some part-time superintendent work for her landlord in exchange for a discount on the rent.
Throughout New York City, especially in smaller buildings, landlords employ their tenants to handle some day-to-day tasks, like taking out the trash.
This can be a good way for owners to save a little money and keep things running smoothly, while tenants get a break on their rent, sometimes $100 to $300 a month. The tenants, though, do not eliminate the need for a professional. Actual superintendents need a variety of skills in order to do their jobs, from basic carpentry to an understanding of sprinkler systems.
The New York City Housing Maintenance Code requires that owners certify that their buildings have a janitor or janitorial service with the ability to maintain the heat and hot water, among other duties. The owner must also post the name of a contact person in the building.
"It's not like Schneider on `One Day at a Time,' who just walked around with a tool belt," said Peter Roach, a resident manager at a 20-story building on the Upper East Side and the president of the Superintendents Technical Association, which teaches courses to building service workers. "You really have to know a lot and be able to multitask."
Super-tenants, on the other hand, generally have other professions and aren't trained to fix major problems, like broken boilers. They might bring order to recycling chaos, replace burnt-out light bulbs or sweep dust bunnies from the hallways.
"In this day and age and in this economy, if someone's going to go to the owner and offer to walk around with a vacuum, it sounds like a pretty good idea to me," Mr. Roach said.
Ms. Smith's duties in Park Slope are usually minimal. She takes out the trash, makes sure the recycling is sorted properly, and lets the exterminator into each of the building's three apartments once a month. If something breaks, she calls the owner's brother, who arranges for repairs to be made. (When rodents attacked, the owner enlisted professional help.)
In exchange, the owner shaves $125 off her rent, which brings her share of the rent for a three-bedroom apartment to $708 per month.
Ms. Smith, 32, has lived in the building for about five years, but inherited these duties only nine months ago, when a neighbor moved out. Her landlord, who lives in Vermont, described her expectations in an e-mail message, "I need you to be the eyes and ears of the building."
"It's kind of like big brother," Ms. Smith said with a smile. "No, I don't spy on them at all. But I do have keys to their apartments."
The arrangement can introduce an awkward dynamic.
"I think it might be a little weird for other tenants," Ms. Smith said. "They feel like I'm having to deal with their trash."
"But it's not a big deal to me," she added of her messy duties. "Otherwise, I would have said no."
Sonja Kerlen, 46, a nurse practitioner, performs similar chores for the landlord of her three-bedroom apartment in Harlem.
"It's mainly keeping the hallways clean, taking care of the garbage and being the point person," she said. "And it works when you have a good landlord."
For her trouble, she receives $250 per month - a fee that has increased over her nine years there as the rent rose to $2,150. She delegates many of her duties and about half the cash to some men in the neighborhood. James Johnson, who goes by J. J., sorts the recycling and takes out the trash for $20 a week. Another man helps with odd jobs like shoveling snow and moving furniture.
The building has a superintendent, but, Ms. Kerlen said, he has a lot of other responsibilities. The tenants call him if they have problems, "but they might let me know if there's something I can push for," she said.
At the end of the month, Ms. Kerlen is left with a little over $100.
Other super-tenants help the landlord by being the first person in the line of defense.
Robert Guerrero, a counselor at the Department of Veterans Affairs, takes care of the trash and some basic repairs in the eight-unit building in East Harlem where he lives with his wife and 15-year-old daughter.
A big part of his role is fielding complaints, and he calls the landlord only if there's a serious problem.
"It's not fun," Mr. Guerrero said of his duties. "It's the financial break, that's what I love about it." He receives a $330 discount off his rent, which brings his stabilized three-bedroom railroad apartment down to $831 per month. "The little extra break does help me though, I tell you."
His brother-in-law, Pedro Pedraza, owned the building for many years. When he sold it a few years ago, Mr. Guerrero moved in and took over the chores. The arrangement was particularly logical because Mr. Guerrero was already familiar with the tenants and with the neighborhood.
"I feel like sometimes I'm the father of the building. Everybody knows me, everybody knows my family and everybody cares for me," he said. "And I care for everybody here, too."
Super-tenant Janio Marrero, on the other hand, often plays the role of grandson in his building.
Mr. Marrero, 27, is the facilities and operations manager at the Cherry Lane Theater in the West Village. He is also a comedian and a carpenter, as well as a tenant and part-time super of the apartments upstairs.
Most of his neighbors are elderly and have been living in the building for decades.
"Part of the reason to have a strapping young man living on the premises was to help the elders," said Angelina Fiordellisi, the artistic director of the Cherry Lane Theater, and the owner of the building since 1996. "But having Janio is a protection, not only for the tenants but also for the building itself."
In exchange for taking care of the building's seven apartments, Mr. Marrero pays only $750 for his spacious one-bedroom. Many of the other tenants, because of their long tenures, pay comically low rents. "They're very grateful and they know the deal they're getting," Mr. Marrero said of the other tenants. "They always hesitate to ask, so when they do, I know they need it."
Mr. Marrero has been living and working in the building for about five years. The superintendent comes by once a week to deal with the trash and major repairs.
But since Mr. Marrero works right downstairs, he handles many of the day-to-day issues - he'll even accept packages for other tenants.
"They put things under my name," he said. "I'll open a package thinking someone's sent me a present and it's for a neighbor."
Occasional confusion aside, he enjoys his neighbors a lot. "They're great," he said. "They're like my grandparents."
Dan Brady, an actor and real estate broker with Corcoran, takes care of a 16-unit building in Bedford-Stuyvesant that is owned by a friend.
"My duties are not like a normal super - I'm not talented enough," Mr. Brady said. "I have no plumbing or electrical skills. I keep the place clean, take care of the garbage."
That said, the building keeps him busy. When the owner moved out of the country, Mr. Brady picked up management duties, like keeping an eye on the building's finances, registering the rent for the subsidized units, and handling the occasional trash-infraction ticket from the Sanitation Department or the odd landlord-tenant dispute. He also deals with the city, which helps some of the tenants pay rent - navigating that bureaucracy is the most frustrating part of the job, he says.
In exchange, he receives $600 per month, half the rent for his $1,200 two-bedroom on the second floor.
"Sometimes the phone rings constantly with a little of this, a little of that; you're basically taking care of people," Mr. Brady said. "And you're taking care of people who see you as the landlord. So if they've had a bad experience with a landlord in the past, they're not going to trust you."
Between tending to the building and working as a real estate broker, Mr. Brady is on call pretty much all the time. But as an actor living in New York - Mr. Brady recently appeared as DC in an off-Broadway production of "Fubar" - his living arrangement makes financial sense.
"I love doing theater," he said. "But I wish it paid better."