Are Window Screens Required By Law

If y'all are moving into a New York City rental flat, it's all-time to take a clear idea of what you tin can expect your landlord to provide. Heat and hot water are a given, of class—you lot shouldn't take to put upwardly with unlivable weather condition—but window blinds? Don't count on finding those.

Even though landlords don't accept to provide a number of things that might seem pretty essential, like a refrigerator or stove—most of them do anyway. Landlords install major appliances to attract renters, not simply in market-rate apartments just in affordable housing and hire stabilized units. After all, if you saw two apartments and ane had a refrigerator and the other didn't, which one are you going to apply for?

Only it tin be a shock to run across an apartment in person that lacks something you lot're used to—like closets in the bedrooms. You may detect them missing in very sometime buildings, where New Yorkers traditionally made do with wardrobes to concord their clothes.

[Editor's note: An earlier version of this article was published in Apr 2021. We are presenting it again with updated information for February 2022.]

There are numerous country and local laws that outline a landlord'southward responsibleness—then many in fact that the State's Court of Appeals once referred to NYC housing laws every bit an "bulletproof thicket" of rules, regulations, and statutes, according to tenant attorney Sam Himmelstein, a partner at Himmelstein McConnell Gribben & Joseph (a Brick Underground sponsor).

1 of the almost of import ready of rules is the warranty of habitability, which ensures the conditions in your flat don't compromise your wellness in whatsoever way. The NYC Housing Maintenance Code, the Multiple Home Law, and the provisions of the Rent Stabilization Regulations are likewise relevant depending on the type of place you live in.

For clarity here's a list of xi fundamental items landlords are required to provide (in most NYC rental buildings), followed by a list of what they are not—and you may be in for a surprise here.

1. Rut, and hot and cold water

During the wintertime months from October 1st through May 31st, when the mercury dips beneath 55 degrees exterior, a landlord must provide heat for a temperature of 68 during the twenty-four hour period (half-dozen a.g. to 10 p.chiliad.). At dark in that location must be a temperature of at least 62 degrees maintained, regardless of the outside temperature.

This is what'south referred to as "heat season" and building owners confront fines during this time if apartments are likewise cold.

2. Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors

Landlords must provide and install at to the lowest degree one approved and operational carbon monoxide detector and smoke detector in each apartment. "The caveat here is that yous—the renter—must maintain a ready of working batteries. At movement-in, the apparatus must exist working, just keeping it working is on you," says Mike Jeneralczuk, an agent at Real NY.

If y'all break or remove a detector, you are required to replace it.

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3. Fire safety measures

Your flat should have a burn and emergency preparedness guide posted on the inside of your front end door. This information also needs to be posted in the common surface area, and distributed to each dwelling, new tenants, and annually during burn prevention week. Information technology's worth a read besides–information technology will tell you lot how to stay safety in a burn. Generally this guidance volition direct you lot to leave the edifice, close the door, and phone call 911. In some buildings, all the same, you may be safer staying in your apartment. The burn escape plan will tell you if this is the case.

Some other feature of buildings with three or more apartments is self-closing doors—these can assist forestall fire and smoke from one flat spreading quickly throughout the building. Your landlord must also brand sure in that location are articulate unobstructed exits. And if you lot have a gas stove you lot can asking stove knob covers which can continue them off-limits from pets or kids. If in that location'south a kid living with you nether the age of six, stove knob covers should exist provided regardless of your asking.

Also, if you lot're thinking of installing a key-locked gate on your fire escape window, or a double cylinder lock, think once again—they're illegal.

4. Pest-free properties

Chances are y'all will come across a mouse or a roach (merely hopefully non a rat) while living in a NYC apartment, and your landlord has an obligation to keep the building free of pests. Holding owners are also required to employ ongoing measures to prevent infestations in or around their buildings. This is a requirement of Local Law 55, passed in 2018. If mice, rats, or roaches are in either an apartment or common surface area, it'southward a violation and the landlord faces fines.

Flat building owners are also required to annually inspect units for indoor allergen hazards, including mice, rats, roaches, and mold.

As for bedbugs, New York State law requires property owners to disclose infestation history dating dorsum one twelvemonth to new tenants through the bedbug disclosure grade you become with a lease. They must also submit an almanac report on bedbug infestations and eradication methods.

5. Atomic number 82-gratis walls

NYC banned the utilise of lead-based pigment in residential buildings in 1960, but it can still be in buildings built before so. The city'due south Childhood Pb Poisoning Prevention Act requires landlords identify and remediate atomic number 82-based pigment hazards in apartments where there are young children under the historic period of six years former.

6. Paint or wallpaper on the walls

Landlords need to paint or embrace your flat'southward walls with wallpaper—so no exposed sheetrock—and they should also repaint or recover the walls every iii years. Sarah Adler, an agent at Corcoran, says the requirement to repaint often comes as a pleasant surprise to renters.

"If someone is settling into a place and they take been there for five years or so, sometimes they are not even aware of the fact that they have the right to have that apartment painted every iii years," she says.

The simply time the cost of painting can exist passed to the tenant is if you request a special brand of pigment or a detail colour, or if you cause damage that requires a new paint chore.

7. Windows and lighting

With some exceptions, every room, including kitchens and bathrooms, should have at least one window opening onto the street, yard, or other outdoor infinite. This applies to apartment buildings built later 1929 and is outlined in the Multiple Dwelling Law. Each window must properly lite all portions of the room.

"There'southward a formula, and it depends on the size of the room, but in club to qualify as a room it has to see light and air requirements," Himmelstein says.

If there isn't a window—and Adler says many buildings do not have a window in the kitchen or the bathroom—there are ventilation requirements.

The law states in that location must be at least half-dozen changes per hour of the air volume of a cooking space without a window or if information technology is on the superlative floor, it can take a ventilated skylight at least 1 human foot broad.

8. Window guards

Owners must provide and install window guards on all windows, including first-flooring bathrooms and windows leading onto a balcony or terrace, in apartments where a kid x years of age or younger resides, and in each common area window, if there are any.

Fifty-fifty if you don't alive with a kid of ten years or younger, only you want guards—say yous have friends or family who bring young children to visit you—y'all can all the same request them and the landlord is required to install them.

You meet window guards most frequently in pre-state of war buildings. Adler says in new construction, windows only open four inches for condom reasons, making the window guards redundant.

9. Locked front door and a peephole

"Virtually buildings must have a locked front door to provide some security so people can't walk right into the edifice," Himmelstein says.

In add-on, your entry door should have a lock, and the landlord must give yous at least 1 key to it. In an apartment edifice with more than three units, the door should have a heavy-duty deadbolt operable by a central from the outside and a thumb-turn from the inside, also every bit a heavy-duty latch set. There should also be a chain door guard so you tin partially open your door. This is all outlined in the Housing Maintenance Code.

In that location also should be an operating peephole in your archway door, and located in a place that lets you lot view any person immediately outside the entrance door.

x. Mail

The Housing Maintenance Code also makes clear landlords are required to provide and maintain canonical mailboxes and directories of tenants then they tin can get their mail. With the ascent of next day commitment and online shopping, landlords are unlikely to fence with this, because if they don't provide mailboxes, they have to take in the mail service themselves and get their ain employees to distribute information technology.

11. Amenities

If you alive in a marketplace-charge per unit apartment, your landlord must give you access to the amenities spelled out in your lease. In a rent-regulated apartment the amenities yous have are governed by the Rent Stabilization Police's concept of required services. "These are services provided to yous when you moved in, and they accept to exist maintained," Himmelstein says.

If you alive in a rent-stabilized apartment and the landlord decides to accept away the gym or the bike storage, they'd accept to ask permission of the Division of Housing and Community Renewal. Sometimes DHCR gives authorization but with conditions. For example, if the doorman is discontinued, the landlord must come up with a replacement that provides an equivalent level of security, which could be an intercom system or photographic camera.

If the landlord does not ask permission or permission isn't granted yous can file a reduction of services complaint and your rent will be rolled dorsum and frozen until the services are returned.

In a market-rate flat, if a detail amenity is listed in the lease, like the laundry room or a doorman, so they must be provided for the duration of that lease. If they are not, it's a alienation of contract and the tenant would be entitled to some kind of damages, Himmelstein says.

xi things landlords are non required to provide

Many first-fourth dimension renters are surprised to find out what's excluded from a landlord'due south listing of responsibilities, merely these things shouldn't come every bit a shock: Your lease spells out what yous tin can expect—and conversely, what is non included, a good reminder to ever read your lease very carefully and in advance of moving in.

"The articulate-cutting answer is the lease defines what's present," Jeneralczuk says.

Below are some of the more common amenities and services you might observe missing in a NYC rental.

1. Microwave and dishwasher

A lot of renters, specially new ones, assume a kitchen will come with a microwave, merely it's your responsibleness to buy 1 if you desire ane. The aforementioned goes for the dishwasher. Of course a lot of landlords put these appliances in place in club to make their apartments more competitive and attract new tenants.

"Some clients from outside New York are shocked that landlords sometimes do non provide them. Certain, they're nowadays in a lot of apartments, but they come with a price tag and are definitely not a given," Jeneralczuk says.

2. Air conditioner and installation

If landlords are required to keep the rut on in the wintertime, yous might look they'd have to provide cooling in the summer but that'southward non the case. When you're looking for a rental and viewing a listing you lot might fifty-fifty run into an Air conditioning unit in the apartment, but find information technology'southward gone by the time y'all motion in.

Many NYC tenants buy their ain in-window AC units and then accept them with them when they exit.

If you purchase an Air conditioning, yous'll besides be responsible for installing it. Your management company won't pay for this just they may be able to give you the name of a contractor and then the install tin exist done safely.

3. Refrigerator and stove

You'd be hard pressed to find an apartment without a refrigerator or stove but a landlord is not legally required to provide either of these appliances.

In some apartments the refrigerator is very pocket-size, or the stove might just be a cooktop or two burner as opposed to a full-size oven. Himmelstein says it'southward possible the landlord could say the tenant has to provide their own appliances and repair them at their ain expense.

Whatever appliances owners do provide, they are responsible for keeping them in working order. A landlord is also responsible for providing the gas to power a stove and so even if yous are asked to install your own apparatus, the ability must be there to go far function.

4. Burn down extinguishers

The New York City burn down code doesn't crave that your landlord put portable burn down extinguishers in your apartment or in any public hallways or corridors in the edifice.

This might seem counterintuitive but the fire and emergency preparedness guide attached to your forepart door has the instructions the Fire Department wants you lot to follow—commonly get out the edifice, shut the door, and phone call 911. Asking you lot to struggle with a burn down extinguisher y'all have probably never used before volition slow your efforts to go out, delay you lot from alerting the Fire Department, and increase risks for residents in the edifice.

You tin, of form, purchase your own extinguishers but yous should still follow the burn escape plan provided by your landlord and keep in mind that extinguishers benefit from periodic inspections by a licensed company.

One caveat: A stationary fire extinguisher must be installed in whatever area with fuel-burning equipment, and so you should see one in your building's mechanical room where the boiler or hot water heater is installed.

5. Window screens

Window screens are a provision that many people expect, just which landlords are not required to provide. Adler says this is often a surprise for tenants who find mosquitoes are a big problem in the city during the summer.

"Near windows can simply open the four inches for New York City kid safe, then depending on what kind of window it is, sometimes the screens demand to be custom built," she says. Another option is to purchase a tension screen that can be fitted into an open window but this is non a landlord's responsibility.

6. Window shades and curtain rods

Many apartments are listed without defunction or blinds and if you don't see them in the listing, don't assume information technology'due south because the owner is measuring upwards for an install. Landlords in NYC aren't required to provide curtains or blinds for your windows. That's on you.

7. Lite bulb replacements

The lights should be working when you motility in, only when the bulbs burn down out, it'south your job to replace them.

viii. Reimbursement for personal losses or damages

Landlords are not responsible if the flat is damaged unless information technology is due to gross negligence.

If there'south a leak and some property gets damaged, the landlord is not responsible for your possessions. Occasionally, a landlord may agree to a settlement, but the solution is for tenants to take renter's insurance. It's non very expensive and covers these kinds of situations.

nine. Pinnacle locks and replacement keys

A landlord needs to provide just one operation lock on your flat door. Any additional locks you might want for security are your responsibleness.

If y'all lock yourself out and your super is not available to let you in, you volition have to call a locksmith and pay for the new lock and keys.

x. Closets

A sleeping room in NYC must be at to the lowest degree fourscore square feet in size with at least ane window but not all bedrooms come with closets. A tenant might ask a landlord to build a closet earlier moving in, or might ask for money toward buying a wardrobe, but that'south entirely upwards to the landlord and not a requirement.

11. Security for delivered packages

Packet theft is an ongoing consequence as people rely on online deliveries. It's especially a challenge for walk-upward buildings, which typically do non have a doorman.

A package left by a tenant'southward front door which is and then stolen is not the landlord's responsibility. "Even if there is no packet room and it is left in a vestibule, they are not responsible," Adler says. A belongings manager might be able to help find out who stole the bundle through the video camera arrangement simply they are not liable for the loss.

Previous versions of this article included writing and reporting by Donna M. Airoldi.

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