New-York tribune., 1922-09-30
Worst jam Yet
For Moving Day;
Rents No Lower
Laws Aimed at Gouging
Landlords Bring Little
Relief 10 Those Who
Want Low-Priced Flats
New Houses No. Ready
Bulk Of Changes Made at
the Last Moment and
Swamp the Van Men

With New York's official moving day
just around the corner, all authorities
agree that this years will be the bus
lest on record. More people are trying
to move at once than ever before, it is
said, and just as many landlords are
trying to get rich over night as at this
time last year.
One of the reasons for the situation
that confronts the harassed head of
the family who has to move all the
family heirlooms, the baby, the cat
and the parrot before the October /
bell rings is that so many household
ers are shifting their dwelling places
into the new buildings that have gone
summer. Nearly all Of these have
been promised for the first of the
month, and many of them are still in
the last frantic throes Of construction.
The city's moving wave consequently
has been considerably retarded, and
work has piled up and held back until
the last few days of September in such
a fashion that this week the van men
say that they are utterly overwhelmed,
and will continue to be so until about
October 5, at which time the food of
orders usually comes to sudden end.
Moving at Last Moment
Another thing that has added to the
congestion, SO the men who are doing
the moving believe, is that people have
been SO heartened for the annual bat
tie with the landlord by the new rent
laws that they have been a good deal
less forehanded than usual about ar
ranging to abandon last years nest.
c%o hat 1ooly;nrr lofo
fident that no one could throw them
out into the street at the termination
Of their leases, and then when they
located their 1923 roof-tree it was
later yet, and much too late to move
early.
AS for rents. landlords and other
such things, Lockwood committees may
come and Lockwood committees may go,
but they remain just the same. Real
estate men declare that the city is
short of the style Of apartments people
want to live in and long Of the kind
that no one can afford to live it. So
last years anomaly of housing short
age existing side by side with surplus
Of thousands of vacant rooms probably
will be repeated. Real estate men also
say that rents have not gone down and
are not going to go down.
\ ue MoyOl SOHllIlAHtCG VII I've ~
Profiteering, which is closely in touch
with the situation, confirms this Mayor
Hylan's "peepul," the great bulk of the
movers, who steer clear of the Park
and Fifth Avenue gold coasts, are look
ing for 81 and So a month per room
apartments, according to Miss Lille
Grant, the acting chairman Of the com
mittee, and such are not to be had
Port E;~b|, Yy~oh~<oJ
Miss Grant adds that it is the COM
mittee's experience that the volume
Of complaints against landlords who
have unwarrantably raised the rent
is just as great this year as in the
fall Of 1921. although the margin of
the increase seems, on the average, to
The committee has been having a great
deal of success in handling this condi-
tion, however, having settled nearly
niue out of ten of the large number of
cases that have come before it this fall
out of court and binding each settle
ment by getting both parties to sign
an agreement effective until the rent
laws expire in 1924.
One new dodge Of shyster landlords
that is being extensively worked at
present, according to Miss Grant, is
that tenants are being notified to va
cate on the ground that the building
is going to be torn down and new
one erected in it's place. When a ten
ant has been thoroughly disturbed by
this announcement the landlord will
generously consent to postpone the
buildings destruction in consideration
Of the tenants agreeing to an increase
in the rent The committee has been
pointing out that under the law land
lord is required to have filed plans and