Brusco Contracting Corporation

I was in a Brusco property for over 4 years & all the maintenance was fine. They renovated common areas, intercoms and replaced the floors in the hallways. What wasn’t fine was how the tenants treated the property and all of the Air BNB rentals that attracted people who trashed the building and made it impossible to maintain. Real Estate companies get a bad rap but they can only do so much!
All in all Brusco did a good job in keeping the building safe, updated and comfortable.

Joe Brusco rescheduled our apartment viewing appointment one day, next day he canceled our appointment. I got it re-​created. He never showed up for the appointment. Communication was lacking from the start, but as of the no-​show cannot get a hold of the agent at all. Stay away.

They deserve zero stars. Seriously.
DO NOT GO ANYWHERE NEAR THIS MANAGEMENT COMPANY. They are rude and unhelpful. Heat has gone out multiple times this winter. When it comes back on, it’s at a very low temperature. My room is usually around 50 degrees. I will be filing a complaint against this group and I hope others do the same. They take advantage of the students (many of whom are foreign) living on their properties. In addition to heating issues, the building is extremely dirty. There are literally piles of garbage heaped in the corridors and on the stairs. I have no idea who the superintendent is, if he/​she even exists.

I have been a tenant in a Brusco Building for over 5 years and have had an incredible experience. Any issue I have had with my apartment or in the building (and there have been few) they have been very responsive and communicative helping to solve the problem in a timely manner. Everyone in the office is so friendly as I have gotten to know them over the years. My super is an amazing man who shows up within a day or so to take care of any issues I might have had… one of the best experiences I have had with a management company. Living in the city can be difficult enough so having a great landlord gives you a great peace of mind. I highly recommend this company as doing business with them year after year has been easy and a pleasure.

Extremely non-​responsive staff, dirty building, on-​going maintenance issues that are slow to be resolved and worst of all, complete refusal to deal with tenants who are repeated noise offenders. It is appalling and extremely distressing to be subjected to a nonstop barrage of noise pollution and having notified the landlord about this, to be continually subjected to more of it. They simply do not care about doing a good job, taking care of their tenants or about being decent human beings. The staff and landlord for this property are terrible people.

The buildings suck. I saw a lot of huge cockroaches the whole time I was there and even a rat on the 4^th floor??? how does that even happen. The garbage area in front had huge rats running left and right.

I am in the process of renting an apartment from them. The office staff is the most rude illiterate trash I have ever dealt with my entire life. I second the previous review where dealing with Brusco is like dealing with a nasty landlord Joe Pesci from the movie. The own reason I put up with this behavior is because I really like the apartment.

I waited to post this until I received my full security deposit back (I did) and I read all of the below reviews before reviewing Brusco. They aren’t great but we didn’t have as bad as some of the experiences below sounded. My husband and I rarely had any problems with our apt itself, it was a remodeled unit, was always well heated (too much) and our apartment had plenty of storage and it was pretty beautiful. We moved because the rent was raised and we wanted somewhere with a better kitchen and quieter area. We were near 72^nd /​Columbus.
However, there was definitely problems with the building and management itself. The building was an old walk-​up in a great location. It was not well maintained or up-​kept in any manner whatsoever,. Which is sad for the age of the building. The common areas were absolutely filthy and disgusting, holes in plaster walls, carpets on the stairs filthy, etc. I think in a years time, I saw the hallway being swept once? I never met the super, never even knew who he has. Our old fridge broke and they replaced it rather quickly so that was good.
There is definitely a roach problem in the building I was in. Management never told us that an exterminator comes occasionally, so this sketchy guy showed up knocking my door asking if he can spray, I thought it was a scam and looking back on it, it was super dangerous of me to allow some random stranger into my apt when I was alone.
We recaulked all the plumbing the apt ourselves and were able to keep the small roaches out for the most part.
Our particular building had a natural gas pipe problem in Oct (we lost our cooking gas for weeks, but the heat was fine), and while not Brusco’s fault at all and they didn’t provide electric hot plates, I think they could have moved the process along faster but they claimed a rent stabilized person was refusing to let the plumber into her apartment. Who knows.
Obviously anytime you call the office, Celsa never seems to care or be concerned about anything.
Overall, we are glad to be in a better building, we wouldn’t rent with Brusco again because I don’t want want to be treated that way again. But we were new to the city at the time so we didn’t know any better.

I want to voice my concern about the Brusco apartment management company/​Westside management. I have been voicing concern about lack of heat since the end of December. My apartment has been as low as 46 degrees, over 20 degrees below the required temperature by law. In fairness, the company offered my unit space heaters to get through the difficult days of the year. That being said, the space heaters set off our circuit breakers, allowing us to only use 1 – 2 at a time.
From what I understand, this company manages and operates many apartment buildings, but the response time on what tenants view as time sensitive issues can vary substantially. I will update this review when my situation plays out but right now I am not satisfied with the current arrangement with the management company. The employees are very cordial and respectful, but just not response enough in my opinion for an issue as sensitive as the heat. Now I fear that my security deposit is in jeopardy because I have voiced my concern to the company. Ideally, I would like a rent reduction for the days I am without heat, but I am extremely pessimistic about this request coming to fruition.

I originally posted this review under Brusco Realty, which is on Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan, not under Brusco Contracting on West 74^th Street. My experience is with the latter, and this posting repeats much of what I wrote earlier.
My experience with Brusco Contracting on West 74^th Street has been of about nine months’ duration, from the period when the building I live in was purchased by the Brusco company. In many ways it has been a tough time, since of the eight apartments in the building fully five have been totally renovated during these nine months. Although the dust in particular has been no fun, I don’t think I realized until recently, as the results of the renovations began to emerge, how down-​market this building looked before. Now all the apartments in the building, including mine, have new doors. The hallways are bright (I hope the mirror gets re-​installed in the entry way). There are new mailboxes, a neater garbage area, and a new security system. The renovation is an inspiration for me to get the interior of my apartment looking nicer. In this connection the Bruscos were so generous as to replace, gratis, the rather decrepit kitchen cabinet unit in the kitchen. I am not from New York.
In my 20-​plus years in the city, Manhattan has undergone many changes. One change has been the enormous amount of building activity and the entry into the city of a new population wanting to live in buildings like mine. I am glad to be in the middle of things here on the Upper West Side.
Since my experience with the Bruscos is so far limited to a short period of time, I will restrict myself to three stars for the moment. Unlike the negative reviews here and elsewhere, however, my response from the Brusco office has been positive. And I’m predicting it will continue that way.

Again, two days without hot water.

This management company is terrible. We had a leak in the ceiling and told them about it. The repair guy came over and literally did nothing and said he’d be back on Monday. This was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. He said the reasoning was he couldn’t get in touch with the neighbor above and didn’t want to break in her apartment. They own the building so not sure why they don’t have keys. Anyways, water finally broke through the ceiling on Saturday. Caused a huge mess and the wall and ceiling destroyed. Called them to fix it and they said they’d be by on Monday. Guess what, no show. Called them on tuesday and spoke to one of their leasers Celsa. She actually talked to me like I was the idiot and said they had to wait 4 – 5 days for the ceiling to dry. I said fine, so definitely Thursday then? She scoffed at me and said she couldn’t give me an exact day. Keep ni mind the ceiling is hanging down and the wall is no all brown. I explained that this was unacceptable and she basically said there was nothing she could do. Definitely some sketchyness going on here. Plus customer service is awful. Stay away!!!

I will be objective and just give you a list of facts, but it is hard because I hate this company so much. I live on one of their buildings since 8 months, and I CANNOT wait till our lease is up.
— You pay a lot of rent but they do NOT give you enough heat. They let you freeze when temperatures are in the 40s outside. You call and they will not pick up the phone, or IF they talk to you at all they will tell you the boiler settings are perfectly fine. I cannot count the days I was inside with three pullovers and slept with a pullover and socks this winter.
— The super is just some guy who turns up when you move in and then never shows up again. They put a sign with his name and number in the entrance of the building, but that is just a show. If you have a broken window, he will tell you he will come and you will never hear from him again. If you have a broken buzzer, you will just have to guess when someone rings at your door.
— The building itself is filthy and dangerous: The stairway in my building is full of rubbish. There are pieces of wood and old plants, which not only attracts vermin but is also a fire hazard. The laundry facilities are despicable, and one of the driers has been broken for weeks. Also, since we moved in not ONCE has our hallway been cleaned. I can tell because there are still the needles of our christmas tree on the carpet.
— Once you enter the office to sign your contract and you see this person called Orchid and you see this office all you want to do is walk right out because the vibe is so bad. Really, really bad.
— New Yorkers have been complaining about this company for years. When we moved in last spring, there were about 60 more negative reviews online, which they somehow managed to take off of the net. We saw it, but we liked the apartment and the location and so we signed with them.
Don’t be mistaken — this company is absolutely criminal and I question why they are still operating in this city.

I’m a tenant of 53 West 75^th Street. The management company never returns phone calls. On average I need to call 4 – 5 times to reach someone in person. Only when I got mugged in the vestibule and called the management company the next day did they return my phone call within 24 hours. We’ve had cockroaches in our apartment and urine leaking from our bathroom ceiling. The pipes in the building are old and clang EXTREMELY loudly when the heat is turned on in the winter such that a full night’s peaceful sleep is not possible. The windows are old, letting in both tons of street noise and a large draft.

I don’t understand the F– hate of Brusco. They do take a while to respond to non-​critical things; we had plaster in our ceiling peeling and it took about 2 months for them to get around to it. But they did eventually. And when there has been serious problems, such as heat or what not, it gets addressed within 24 hours.
On a day-​to-​day basis, we love our apartment. We love the neighborhood. The rent is fair. And since we rented directly from Brusco, we didn’t pay a broker’s fee.
I’ve had better realty experiences but I don’t know if I really expect better. Three stars/​perfectly average seems fair.

F minus.
Contracting? Property management I’m sure. I think they deliberately misfiled themselves to avoid the poor reviews.
Speaking of contractors though, the day I moved into my new apartment last year the contractors who were working for my neighbor were in my apartment having lunch. And the toilet was clogged with poop. Yes poop. Gross poop. Talk about crappy management: they left the doors unlocked between my signing and move in! What the hell is that all about?
Upon move in I had to scrub everything. Thick dust. The fridge was filthy. I didn’t really care though. It just says something about what to expect.
What did bother me was that the windows didn’t close properly. And upon closer inspection the floors weren’t even. So my furniture wobbles, and my place lets out heat like it lets in smoke, even after they supposedly fixed the window seal. It took me eight weeks to get knobs for the goddamn stove (which were THERE when I was shown the place, wtf!)
Now that I’m leaving they’re sending around realtors ²⁴⁄₇ with keys. Giving out my telephone number to EVERYBODY. I’m not even sure that’s legal: people showing up at your house with keys saying «I have permission to come in.» I mean, it wouldn’t even bother me if there weren’t 90 000 of them from City Habitat whose clients are clearly not looking for something like the space I have. If I’m going to be intruded upon, I think it should be by people who MIGHT actually rent the space.

Brusco is really the worst management company in the upper west side, I work as a real estate agent and I live in one of their buildings so I would know. I have been to almost all their buildings and they are horrible, not updated, rats, old, every tenant that I talk to that moves out says they can’t deal with them and especially not with ORCHID, this person is the devil herself. I would never recommend anyone living in their apartments, they may look nice and sound nice but once you are moved in they will not give a SHIT about you.

can u give zero stars? i love my apartment location, the look, the layout, man if it wasnt for the owner and management company!!! we had water actively leaking on our stuff for weeks and NOTHING! i cant wait to never have to deal with them again.

Brusco is HORRIBLE! Our building is infested with rats, mice and huge cockroaches. When you call to complain they don’t return your call unless you threaten to break your lease. There is no reliable emergency number in case of a problem. We are trying to sublet and get out of here as soon as possible. They prey on people who just moved to the city and don’t know about their terrible reputation.

The worst of the worst.
When you think Brusco think of Joe Pesci’s slimey character in «The Super.»
Refused to deliver heat to our apartment and only did so when 311 was notified. At that time they refused to offer a new lease after years as a resident who always paid on-​time and brought improvements to the property despite their negligence.