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Welcome to \u201cApartment Department,\u201d Curbed\u2019s advice column by Clio Chang. Join us every other Wednesday for questions about making peace with noisy-sex neighbors, the nuances of roommate fridge etiquette, and whatever else you might need to know about renting, buying, or crying in the New York City housing market.<\/p>\n
Got a problem? Email\u00a0clio.chang@nymag.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Dear Apartment Department,<\/p>\n We keep our shoes and coats organized on racks on the landing outside our four-story walk-up \u2014 everything is neatly in two coat racks and one shoe rack. But our landlord keeps yelling at us that we\u2019re not allowed to keep things there and that we \u201cdon\u2019t rent the landing.\u201d Almost everyone else I know in NYC keeps things on their landing. He claims it\u2019s a fire hazard, but the stairs are completely clear and no one else is walking through our space to get out (we\u2019re on the top floor). We really need the space. How do we convince him to leave us alone?<\/p>\n Sincerely,<\/p>\n Don\u2019t Tread on My Landing<\/p>\n Dear Tread,<\/p>\n It\u2019s true that a lot of New Yorkers keep things on their landings. Space is valuable and we need every inch we can get. I\u2019m not here to scold you (I\u2019d do it too), and it honestly sounds like you have a much more organized situation than most. But unfortunately the city is on the side of your landlord \u2014 a spokesperson for the FDNY confirmed that it\u2019s against the fire code to store personal property in building hallways and corridors. I even asked them specifically about top-floor landings and it\u2019s still a no-go: \u201cStorage is not permitted in hallways and on landings,\u201d per the department.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s illegal, but is it actually dangerous? Is this just Big Landing Propaganda? I turned to Bob Fash, a retired New York City firefighter and fire marshal who worked in the department for 25 years, to ask how big of a deal your situation was, really. He was also unmoved. \u201cThey may say it\u2019s clear for people to go down, but it could be a hazard for firefighters going up and getting caught on stuff,\u201d Fash said. You might think the landing is still clear enough to move freely but in an emergency, firefighters wearing and carrying a lot of equipment will need way more space to maneuver than your perhaps daintier selves. (Fash told me about a time that a fellow firefighter got his mask tied up in a nail salon\u2019s storage racks and got stuck.)<\/p>\n This doesn\u2019t excuse the way your landlord is handling the situation, if in fact he\u2019s yelling at you about it. (No one should be yelling in a professional relationship, but maybe you mean \u201cyelling\u201d in a more figurative sense.) He\u2019s probably more concerned about a potential fine than your well-being, honestly. But if a city inspector issues him a violation notice, he could technically use this as a reason to start an eviction proceeding against you, according to Ronald Languedoc, tenant lawyer at Himmelstein Gribben & Joseph. It wouldn\u2019t come out of nowhere, though. \u201cIf a landlord was going to start an eviction proceeding, they would have to give the tenant written notice,\u201d Languedoc said. \u201cUsually this would be a notice to cure.\u201d So you would get a chance to clear your landing before your landlord could actually kick you out. (Seth Miller, a lawyer at Collins, Dobkin & Miller, confirmed this, writing: \u201cIt is hard to conceive that a tenant would actually lose an apartment over it, especially not without being able to cure it.\u201d)<\/p>\n But don\u2019t worry \u2014\u00a0I\u2019m still here to help. While it may seem there\u2019s no way your racks full of coats and shoes could fit inside your apartment, E.J. Rosen, the founder of the New York City\u2013based home-organizing company Space Doctors, assures us that they can. (In all her career, she\u2019s come across only one book-collecting tenant in a studio apartment who was beyond her help.) \u201cIt\u2019s always a strange puzzle, but the puzzle can always be solved,\u201d Rosen said. For shoes, Rosen points to tilting<\/a> cabinets that are perfect for narrow passageways or clear shoe boxes<\/a> for the bottom of a closet. Coats are bigger, but there are solutions there too. Maybe it\u2019s about figuring out what you truly need to be accessible and what can be tucked away for the season. And don\u2019t we all have too much stuff anyway? Maybe the version of you with a clear landing is also a version of you who has a \u201ccapsule wardrobe\u201d and meditates every morning. Good luck!<\/p>\n Have a question for the Apartment Department? You can send it to clio.chang@nymag.com.<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Curbed Newsletter<\/p>\n A daily mix of stories about cities, city life, and our always evolving neighborhoods and skylines.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n