Leigh Kamping-Carder

One of the perks of city living in what is arguably the nation’s most insane real estate town are the myriad products and services that help make it better: countertop washing machines, roommate-matching apps, aquarium-herb garden hybrids, meal delivery services, and a flood of new apartment search sites.

Whether your heart longs to gaze at Central Park foliage or a field of skyscrapers, a spellbinding view is up there on the list of coveted apartment assets.

It’s doubtful that you and a Russian oligarch are in the market for the same kind of real estate, but chances are, you both covet the same thing: time. “There’s only one thing we have in common, and that’s we’re all running out of time,” says Leonard Steinberg, president of brokerage Urban Compass.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire--especially when your neighbor is lighting up on his balcony. One Apartment Therapy reader had just such a problem, querying the blog’s “Ask Alice” etiquette column on how to handle the smoker next door, whose habit was wafting waves of stink into their apartment.