Busted

Today I was busted by the super of my building. I had this one coming to me, but thought I could defy the laws of grumpy/overprotective new yorkers. Wrong!

I knew I wasn't supposed to knock down the wall without board permission. I also knew I wasn't supposed to do construction on the weekends. It turns out that a lot of dust fell into the steam pipe collar in my kitchen. When the heat kicked on recently, the expansion and contraction of the pipe resulted in dust falling into my neighbor's kitchen. I politely dealt with him about this and offered to seal it for him. I thought this was a normal occurrence in every NYC apartment, so I didn't think much of it.

Apparently, it kept falling for 1 week while I was gone at Greenbuild (kind of ironic how I'm at a conference about building for the future as my old building is falling apart in a sense). My neighbor continuously phoned the managing agent who then told the super to check out my apartment today, the day the electrical work started.

I assured the super that it was fine and that my structural engineer had looked at it, assuring me it wasn't a load bearing wall. He freaked out, telling me the ceiling would fall down on me. It's funny how much these guys don't know and they take care of your building!

Anyways, no consequences yet, but I plan on hearing soon about it.