An Upper East Side Manhattan couple is demanding $27,000 (U.S.) in compensation for all the takeout food and restaurant meals they were forced to eat after a gas problem in their building left their six-burner double-oven range unusable for nearly a year.
"Accomplished cooks" Beverly Taki, 66, and husband Louis Maione, 68, are suing a Park Avenue management company for 10 months worth of delivery and sit-down meals they consumed while waiting for their burners to turn on. (That's $2,700 a month or roughly $90 worth of food a day, for those counting.) "My wife is a fabulous cook," Mr. Maione told the New York Post. "I'd come home and [she'd]have a rib roast ready or any number of desserts she was testing."
Without gas, the couple was reduced to using a hot plate on days they did not eat out. They claim building managers refused to install an electric stove while the gas issue was being resolved.
They also had to cancel their regular holiday shindig: "Instead of their annual Christmas Eve bash, for which Maione usually creates a fish dinner with lobster sauce that takes eight hours to prepare, the couple was forced to take guests to restaurants, racking up a whopping $1,700 bill instead of the usual $600, according to court papers."
The couple isn't getting much sympathy online (sample comment: "ungrateful old yaks"), especially since Ms. Taki sold the apartment for a tasty $4.4-million last July.
Over at Gothamist, the shock came not from the $27,000 figure, but from the idea that some New Yorkers actually eat in.
"For many New Yorkers, an oven is the place where you store winter clothes, extra aluminum foil and maybe some back issues of The New Yorker you aim to get to later," Garth Johnston wrote.
"But some people actually use them (and their stoves), and get very unhappy if they are removed! Also, litigious."
What's the most outrageous thing you've demanded from a landlord?
Zosia Bielski