Dividing Apartment into 2 bedrooms - please help (apartments, rental)
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I recently moved into a 1br apartment in long island city. Since the apartment is huge (700 sq ft), and I live alone, I planned on converting the living room into a second bedroom and getting a roommate to help. (see floor plan below)
Basically the bedroom and living room are separate with their own doorways, with a kitchen in between them. The living room has an arched doorway (without a door) leading into the kitchen. I got a carpenter to put up a door in the arched doorway, thereby creating a large second bedroom in the apartment. I haven't yet advertised the room on craigslist which is what I originally planned on.
When the building super came to fix something at the apartment, he saw the door in the living room and started yelling it was illegal as it was a violation of the nyc firecode (I'm allowed to have roomates etc, so thats not the issue). Now my super is a real idiot, and he cant seem to explain what is actually wrong with the setup (doesnt speak good english) except repeating that this is a firecode violation and I need to remove the door. I dont want to do anything illegal, so I removed the door from the hinges until I could figure out what to do.
Over the last week, I have been trying to figure out what fire code violation hes talking about (or if there's any other rules I've been breaking) but am having trouble finding any information online. Have also called companies that put up pressurised walls in the hope that they would have dealt with the same issue, but they were not able to help either.
Did somebody go through the same situation when converting a room that connected to the kitchen?
I live in a 6 story building built in 1939. The emergency exit is through the actual bedroom, and the second exit is the staircase, so theres no violation there. The kitchen has no windows itself.
If anybody has any information or a number that I could call from the fire department or the NYC buildings department, I would really appreciate your help.
Do you own the apartment? I don't think you do, check your lease agreement. Most all of buildings and private owners will not allow you do even temporary conversion putting up a temporary wall "partitions" with pressurized walls. I'll even spoon feed you an article about it.
If you are talking about adding perm wall, door, etc. to make it into two separate bedroom then yeah, you are doing is illegal conversion because you are changing certificate of occupancy.
Anyhow, you can easily google for this info by typing conversion blah blah there are tons of articles and regulations about it. So why don't you check with your LL first. Based on limited info you provided, my money is what you are doing illegal conversion.
Does the second bedroom have access to a window with a fire escape from within? If not, that's a direct code violation. All legal apartments must have 2 means of egress- front door and secondary measure.
Also being allowed to have a roommate doesn't give you the right to create new rooms/space within the apartment that changes the structure.
From what I understand 2 firefighters died because they could not exit an apartment with an illegal wall in the living room. So you can imagine that the fire department is very serious about fining the landlords for illegal walls.
OP wants to convert a shoebox into a matchbox, which seems fairly common in NYC, but he's doing it in a sneaky way, without consulting the landlord or super. not a wise move, that's for sure...
I've seen pressurized walls, and usually they're so thin, that you might as well hang a bed sheet instead.
OP might want to also consider getting something as simple as a bookcase divider from ikea.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bellakin123
I guess it's huge if the OP is an elf or a leprechaun or one of those "under the bridge dwellers"
Was thinking exactly the same thing.700 sq ft is like a big studio/small 1 br.
OP's tenancy is probably over anyway once the super tells the landlord.
Do either one of you live in a rental building in Manhattan or brooklyn?
That is huge for a 1br in either borough. Im willing to bet maybe ya live in an actual house in westchester, long island, staten island or some far away distance in the bronx/queens that you need to drive in somewhere. If thats the case then that explains your comments.
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