Margot Slade

Having renovated before, they would do it again, swear the battle-scarred but intrepid renovators comparing notes on Brownstoner.com's forum, who toss off some famous-last-contractor words as they stroll down memory lane ("I do this all the time," "I can fix it," and "It won't be messy," figure prominently in Things My Contractor Said).

Nimet Habachy, one of the most beautiful voices on radio and still (though less often) on WQXR-FM, is among a rarefied group of New Yorkers who have owned their apartments for 30 years or more.  Now the Egyptian-born former host and programmer of New York at Night tells BrickUnderground some apartment tales from her own repertoire--like why she nearly always walked out on her own dinner parties.

How did you find your apartment?

New Yorkers manage to see storage opportunities in the most unlikely places -- an unused oven that can accommodate sweaters, for example, or a too-windy balcony that can be used for... What exactly it can be used for is the subject of a thread on StreetEasy.com: "We have a regular balcony space and NOT a roof or terrace space. We live in a new condo by the East River and it can get very windy at times.

Open kitchen or closed? A StreetEasy.com tussle over renovating a kitchen in a prewar classic-six apartment came down squarely on doing it the way you want it now, not for resale in five years. Looking that far ahead, said one commenter, "I doubt you will make anything on the reno and may well not even recover the money you spend."

If you are moving, you may be understandably concerned about picking up bed bugs in transit.

Yet whether out of cost worries, denial or ignorance, New York City moving and storage companies have been slow to adopt procedures that cut down the risk of in-truck transmission.  So we were intrigued to hear that Moishe's, the 30-year-old local moving company, recently announced a prevention program.