10 Ways Your Landlord Can Ruin Your Sex Life

I am firmly convinced I live in the most poorly managed building in Manhattan, and as such, have been confronted by more than a few awkward courtship situations in which my landlord or superintendent revoked my sexual agency and held it firmly in his own hands. Below are ten of the most universally confronted residential woes that threaten to ruin your sex life.

Wildlife.

If your building isn’t properly maintained, it can feel like someone is playing Jumanji in your residence. Unless your guy/girl is into interspecies orgies, this can be quite disruptive. A rat fight club in the ceiling can cancel out even the most thoughtfully chosen playlist. Fellas, you want to make a girl scream, but not from the tickle of a three inch cockroach on her thigh. And ladies, a man’s unanticipated high pitch screech might kill the mood.

Utilities gone haywire.

Sweating is the favored after affect of a good date, until slippery fun gives way to undesired toxin release. Given that most urban dwellings don’t allow tenants to control the temperature, cozy warmth in the winter months can often give way to roasting chestnuts, and not in a good way. Should your building have central air conditioning, we’re almost too bitter to sympathize with a mid-August outage.

Broken elevator.

After hours, or even days, of carefully calibrated seduction, the final step — bedroom entry — is key and highly susceptible to blunders. Live on the ninth floor? Unless you met in a hiking group, your suitor might render the opportunity costs of nine flights of stairs too high, and the exertion required thereto is hardly amenable to an enthusiastic romp. Worse yet, his/her other booty call might live on the building’s first floor or a building with a fully-functioning elevator, so you’re treading on thin ice.

Smells.

You want to stimulate your partner’s senses, but olfactory intrusions of unidentifiable origin never enhance successful seduction. You’re all about being neighborly, but could do without the smell of 9F’s refrigerator spring cleaning your super may have neglected to take outside. If we wanted our nasal cavities penetrated, we’d go elsewhere.

Sensitive fire alarms.

Convinced your college sex life was handicapped by prohibition of candles in the dorm? Adult life doesn’t promise to alleviate barriers to pyro-related seduction. Lazy installation or maintenance of smoke alarms in old buildings often results in that deafening screech just by leaving a batch of thoughtfully baked cookies or an aphrodisiac-laden meal in the stove just a minute too long. If your date bolts at the sirens, at least you’ll have a brigade of strong-armed firemen to rescue the evening.

Plumbing issues.

Leaky faucets and compulsory cold showers are one thing, but nothing ruins romance more than seeing your partner’s excrement, fetishists excluded.

Got It On Lock.

A temperamental locking system is a multi-pronged nuisance. An evening of verbal volleyball and worked up sexual tension can all but dissolve after 15 minutes of fidgeting with keys to maneuver a sticky lock. That moment you realize neither of you have anticipated the contraception issue? Expect it to be the same moment to get locked in the apartment or for the screws in your door knob finally give up. You’re locked in, and nobody’s knob is getting turned tonight.

Thin Walls.

You may already be insecure about your coital sound effects, never mind having an audience. Landlord skimped on installation? The cacophony of neighbors’ extra curricular activities mixed with yours can feel like an immaterial orgy — surely the worst kind. Noise complaints from tenants can render you carnally mute for the foreseeable future. None of this bodes well for a satisfying sex life.

Required carpeting.

Not all landlords enforce the stipulation that 75 percent of floor space must be carpeted, but those that do completely take fun, spontaneous, non-abrasive floor sex off the table (or, rather, relegate it to the table).

Allowing maintenance or showings at a bad time.

Sure, ideally we’d like all of the aforementioned residential woes rectified as promptly as possible. To that end, we can’t wait for our lease to be up on our thin walled, questionably scented, overheated petting zoo of an apartment. But the likelihood of your landlord making an appointment for showings or maintenance is unlikely. More likely that they’ll show up mid-action to fix the shower or show a retired couple your two-bedroom convertible turned love den. Good luck getting that security deposit back — now any unidentified stain or wall blemish will likely be attributed to your demonstrated exploits.

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