Pigeon: NYC apartment and landlord check

Scores each StreetEasy listing out of ten on sun, noise, subway, HPD violations, the landlord and the rent. Free, no account.

Pigeon adds a panel to StreetEasy listings with six scores out of ten: light, noise, transit, building, landlord and value. Each one opens to the public records behind it and the question to ask the broker. On a 3rd-floor apartment at 255 West 75th Street, for example, it shows 30 minutes of direct sun in December and 7 heat complaints to HPD in the past year. Works on StreetEasy rental, sale, building and search pages. Free, with nothing to sign up for. Not affiliated with StreetEasy or Zillow. LIGHT Every outside wall of the building, from the city's footprint data, against the measured roof height of every building within 250 meters. Pick December, March or June and a floor, then click an hour or press play to see which sides get direct sun. Walls shared with the next building are marked, since they have no windows. A 3D view of the block shows the same hour. NOISE 311 noise complaints on the block over the past year, how many came between 10pm and 4am, and how the block compares with the others in its ZIP code. TRANSIT The nearest subway entrances, which lines stop there, the walk in minutes, and the nearest parks. BUILDING Two years of complaints to HPD and every open HPD violation, sorted into seven things renters care about: heat and hot water, pests, leaks and mold, repairs that stick, fire and safety, plumbing, power and the elevator, and upkeep. Each counts the apartments affected, not the calls, and compares the share with every NYC building the same size. Heat and pests weigh most, and one bad area pulls the score down more than an average would. Bedbug filings, rat inspections and elevator status count too, and a problem in the listing's own apartment is named. LANDLORD The registered owner and the head officer behind the LLC. Housing court cases and harassment findings from the past five years, evictions, open violations across their other buildings, and whether the building has rent-stabilized apartments registered. VALUE The asking rent against the typical rent for the same number of bedrooms in the same ZIP code, from Zillow's rent index and HUD's bedroom ratios. The rent is read from the page and compared on your computer; it is never sent. SEARCH RESULTS Each listing gets a small chip with its landlord score; click it for all six without leaving the page. A rent-stabilized switch dims or hides the listings in buildings with no stabilized apartments registered. PRIVACY Pigeon sends the building's street address to its server to look the building up, with the apartment number removed first. It sends nothing else about the listing or about you, has no accounts and runs no analytics or ads. The extension loads nothing from other servers, except Ko-fi if you open the Tip jar, so its maps are drawn from the city's geometry instead of map tiles. WHY IT EXISTS All of this is public, but spread across datasets keyed by different IDs: bedbug filings by BBL, rat inspections by separate borough, block and lot columns, elevator status by a building number the listing never shows. Pigeon joins them for the building you are looking at. SOURCES NYC Open Data and JustFix's NYCDB: HPD complaints, violations, registrations, litigation and building records, DOF marshal evictions, rent stabilization registrations, DOHMH rodent inspections, bedbug reporting, LL33 energy grades, DOB NOW elevator devices, 311 service requests, parks properties, building footprints, LION street centerlines and PLUTO; MTA subway entrances from the state portal; Zillow's Observed Rent Index; HUD Small Area Fair Market Rents. Refreshed monthly, with a live pull for any building you open. Not legal advice. Check with the city before you sign anything.