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Basement apartment

Apartment located below street level

Basement apartment
Summary

Apartment located below street level

The entrance to the basement apartment, [[Korea]].

A basement apartment or basement flat is an apartment located below street level, underneath another structure—usually an apartment building, but also homes and businesses. Cities in North America legally define them as an accessory dwelling unit or "ADU". Rent in basement apartments is usually lower than in above-ground units, due to deficiencies common to basement apartments, which are often cramped, and typically noisy, especially due to passing traffic. They are also particularly vulnerable to burglary, especially those with windows at sidewalk level. In some instances, residential use of below-ground space is illegal, but practiced regardless.

Owning a home with a basement apartment can be an investment, both providing an income stream and adding to the value of the property. NOTOC

Health risks

Basement in The Netherlands

Health risks of basement apartments include mold, radon, and increased likelihood of injury or death due to fire. However, risks are reflected in lower rents.

Basement apartment tenants are more likely to be injured or die due to fire. Many landlords do not follow fire code regulations, and often such regulations are not enforced by governments.

Flooding is particularly dangerous in basement apartments. When Hurricane Ida passed over the northeast of the United States, most of the deaths were caused due to flooding in basement apartments.

In fiction

Ruth McKenney based a series of stories in The New Yorker, later republished in the book My Sister Eileen, on her experiences living with her sister in a moldy, one-room basement apartment, directly adjoining the Christopher Street subway station on the , at 14 Gay Street, in Greenwich Village for which she paid $45 a month (). The apartment was burgled within the first week during the six months they lived there. The book was later made into a Hollywood movie.

A basement apartment at 5 St. Luke's Place in New York City’s Greenwich Village was the scene for both the 1966 play and the 1967 movie “Wait Until Dark”.

References

References

  1. David W. Chen, [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E02EFD6153CF936A15751C0A9629C8B63 Be It Ever So Low, the Basement Is Often Home], ''[[The New York Times]]'' (February 25, 2004).
  2. "Basement Apartment". Basement Bro.
  3. "The Tenant's Guide to Mold".
  4. (October 2010). "Tops and bottoms: State tolerance of illegal housing in Hong Kong and Calgary". Habitat International.
  5. Apartment Ratings. "4 Safety Tips When Living in Basement Apartments". Health & Safety.
  6. CBC News. "1 dead in Edmonton house fire".
  7. (2021-09-02). "What we know about the people who died in the flooding.". The New York Times.
  8. (2021-09-04). "New York floods: calls for action after 11 die in basement apartments".
  9. ''My Sister Eileen'', pg. 197.
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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