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?Our landlord?s neglect has been fruitful for our friendship.? In August 2018, I moved into a second-floor apartment in a brownstone in Park Slope, in Brooklyn. My roommate, Lucy, moved in later that month. By the fall, thanks to a series of building problems, I?d become unusually close with our neighbor, Cat Beurnier, who lived downstairs with her two kids. We spoke about how living in a disaster building cemented our friendship.

Jessica Gross: Let?s start in fall 2018 when, a couple months after I moved in, all the drama started with our building. We?d spoken before then, when we passed each other in the hallway, but that?s when we became close.
Cat Beurnier: Right. It was the end of October, I think" Jessica: Yes, and ?John the Plumber,? as Joe [our landlord] kept referring to him, failed to come turn on the heat, resulting in this ?
Cat: Disaster. If memory serves, I called him and asked if he would come turn the heat on [because the boiler is in the basement, which is part of Cat?s apartment], and he told me I should do it myself. I was like, ?I?m kind of nervous about doing that.? He said, ?Well, you have a carbon-monoxide detector, don?t you" If there?s a problem, then the carbon-monoxide detector will go off.? I was really nervous, but I did turn it on. A couple days later, the detector went off in the middle of the night and there was a strong smell of gas, and I tried calling John the Plumber ?
Jessica: Who had taken the k...