Watch as I punch my landlord in the face

Just when I was feeling jovial and light and in the spirit of the holiday season, my "family" and I get a notice in the mail from ConEd stating that our management company, which has been tipping towards disaster since we moved in in June, has neglected to pay their bills. The ConEd bill for the common areas of my apartment building (which includes heat in the lobby/hallways, elevator, and all lights in the lobby/halls/stairwell) has not been paid since AUGUST and is totaling over $18,000. EIGHTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS in unpaid bills. If this goes unpaid, as of January 10th, all electric will be shut off to our common areas. This, thankfully, does not affect our individual apartments, as we pay our own ConEd, and ON TIME NO LESS. However, no elevator (we live on the sixth floor) and no lights in the stairwells means, essentially, that we cannot safely get to our apartment (I'm certainly not going to climb six flights in the pitch black darkness), which obvious has a huge impact on us.

This unpaid bill situation has now topped the list of complaints we have about our BRAND NEW APARTMENT, which includes uneven walls, window drafts, a broken intercom, no hot water in our showers... and more. We've been (relatively) patient with the company when asking them to fix things in the apartment but have largely been ignored. Only within the last two weeks did we get hot water in the showers. But this ConEd situation makes me furious. Like, I MAY MURDER THEM, furious. I have been storming around my office all day threatening physical violence on anyone who crosses me today. Beware.

The best possible scenario, at this point, seems to be getting out of our lease and moving elsewhere. Somewhere, perhaps, where the management isn't a troop of irresponsible douchebags. A girl can dream. One of our other options, according to the resources at 311 is to pool together a tenant association (which I am all for) and file a joint complaint with the city. Okay, fine. 311 and others have also suggested that each apartment chip in an equal share to foot the bill, and then deduct that money from our rent. To this, I say ABSOLUTELY NOT. I look at it as a parent paying for the college student's credit card bill. They will not learn that their actions are unacceptable if we simply pay their bills for them. Part of being an adult is paying bills. Part of running a COMPANY is also paying bills, not running off doing hell knows what with our money.

Option 23 is that we pack up and move to Florida. It's warm there, even in December.

And, even if the apartment is falling down and we will be stuck on the sixth floor until June, we at least have a pretty tree to look at: