A tenant in a Brooklyn building owned by Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo has not had heat in his apartment since Feb. 23, when a blizzard dropped over 19 inches of snow on New York City. Between the months of October through May, when the outside temperature drops below 55 degrees, building owners in the city are required by law to heat apartments to at least 68 degrees during the day, and 62 degrees at night.
In this case, those standards are not being met. This tenant, a longtime Bucks fan, has sent Instagram direct messages to the two-time MVP, hoping to get his attention. (We are protecting the tenant's identity because he has been subjected to threats as a result of his profession, and this interview effectively reveals his address.) Here's what it's like to have a top-three NBA player as your landlord while having no heat. The following interview, conducted on March 4, has been condensed and edited for clarity.
When reached by Defector Thursday morning, a Bucks spokesperson declined to comment. Defector also called and emailed the property management company and Alex Saratsis, Antetokounmpo's agent, but has not received a response; we will update if that changes.
How long have you been at your current apartment, and at what point did you learn who your current landlord was?
I moved there in October of 2020, because the building was offering like two free months for people to move in, because that was the time when everybody was leaving the city. Landlords were just desperate to get people in. Been there since.
The way I found out [about Giannis] was kind of insane. I remember
scrolling on Twitter one day, and all of a sudden I saw a screenshot from this trade organization that announces when famous people buy apartment buildings. The first thing I remember seeing was my address.
I was like, Why am I seeing my address on Twitter? That's crazy. Then I saw Giannis, his face on it, and there was a moment where I didn't believe it, and I was very confused, because I grew up in Milwaukee. So it's sort of a weird Twilight Zone moment where the star player of the team I grew up watching bought my building randomly on the other side of the country.
We have a group chat on WhatsApp for our building and our sister building that's part of the same complex. It was going off at the time when people were hearing the news. There was a mix at the time: people who thought it was faked and people who thought it was real. Then at some point, someone found a link to the signed lease that had Giannis's signature on it, and that's when we all realized that it was legitimately happening.
He bought the buildings last November.
In that time, what has your experience been under new management?
I would say it's been a bit of a mix. The building itself has had some security issues for a while, with people getting into the buildings to steal packages. There was an issue recently with a front door not closing all the way, and someone got in and went to our basement, ripped open the package room door and ripped all the boxes apart and stole everything inside. There's an issue with kids in the neighborhood going to one of the buildings that has a lounge in it, just smoking pot down there and being really aggressive when we try to get them to leave, and we've had to call the police a bunch of times to get that to happen. The [pre-Giannis] management was not very good at making sure that there was actually security in place for the people who lived in those buildings.
The new management, I would say, has been better about getting things generally fixed. However, right now we're in the midst of a heat issue, which is why you saw the screenshot [of a direct message] I sent to Giannis—the heat in my building and our sister building has been out since the blizzard [Feb. 23].
From what I understand, a lot of people's heat has been out, because there's an issue with a condenser on our roof that froze over during the blizzard. The management company hired people to come by last week, and they couldn't fix it, and so they had to order parts. Then they brought new people in yesterday who said that the people who came in last week fucked everything up. I haven't had any direct contact with Giannis. I mean, I imagine he bought the building to be a silent owner, and just hired a management company to handle everything for him. So everything's kind of new, and it's hard to know what to blame on the management company and what to blame on the building itself having issues from when it was built.
But generally, they hired a super who's been a bit more responsive. We used to have a super that lived in the building, and he moved out and the last management company just didn't replace him. The last one, I would say, was a bit cheap in the way that they handled things. Overall, there's been improvements. But I think if you ask most people in the building, they would say that things could be better.
What updates have you gotten on this lack of heating?
Last I heard was yesterday, when someone came in, that they weren't gonna fix it yesterday, and they're giving people space heaters starting today, because I guess they don't know when they're going to be able to solve it. I didn't get a definitive date from the tech person who came in to fix it, who said they weren't gonna be able to fix it today, and that was yesterday.
So how have you guys been coping?
Yeah, in the midst of the biggest blizzard in New York for the last decade, our heat has just malfunctioned. Lots of blankets, layers. I know some people do have space heaters.
Have you guys looked into organizing as a group of tenants?
We've been reporting it to 311. There was someone from the housing authority who came by on Sunday. I don't know what next steps we're going to try to take. At this point, we've been reporting it as much as possible to get it on their radar, and I'm pretty sure that they get fines for every day that the heat is gone. I'm absolutely going to be getting a rent abatement. Haven't offered it, but I will 100 percent be getting some sort of discount on my rent at this point for that.
So as far as you know, the next step is for the space heaters to arrive, and then, on whatever timeline, fixing the condenser?
I don't have a timeline for when anything is gonna get fixed, unfortunately.
You said you don't know exactly where the accountability lies, but does this saga make you feel about Giannis differently at all?
I can say it jokingly, because the reality is he has no control over any of this, right? I'm sure it's people around him, his business advisors were like, Hey, buy this building. It's up for sale. It's in Brooklyn, in this neighborhood that's getting gentrified, and people are spending more and more money in it. I'm sure it's a good business deal. I imagine it's a drop in the bucket for him. If I ever say this has a negative impact on how I think about him, I think that's more joking, because in reality, what's he gonna do? None of this is really on his radar.
Yet!
Or, like, what's the management company doing? Yeah, again, it's hard to know what of this is his fault, because all he did was buy a building three months ago, so he can't change the fact that the heating unit on the roof is going to freeze over during the winter. He wasn't even around when it was being built or designed. It's the same thing for the management company. Whoever built this building made a dumb decision and decided that they were going to put in incredibly important heating units, or important parts of a heating unit, on a roof that was unprotected, so that the elements could get it when there's extreme weather. Because this is not the first time since I moved into this apartment building that I have been without heat for an extended period of time.
This happened before?!
Yeah, this happened four years ago to me, when I did not have heat for two and a half weeks. I don't think the entire building had the same issue, but I definitely did, and I got a rent abatement for that as well.
So this was a known issue in the building for years.
Probably, yeah.
Got it. You said you grew up in Milwaukee. Are you a Bucks fan? Do you have any fond memories of watching them?
My family had season tickets for the Bucks when I was a kid. I was a die-hard fan. I won "Fan of the Game" twice. I used to go to games with face paint.
Who were your favorite players?
I grew up in the era of Ray Allen, Glenn Robinson, Sam Cassell. Ray Allen was my favorite player for a long time, and then he got traded and that was one of the worst days of my life.
Did you watch the Giannis era much?
Oh yeah. I was at Barclays [Center] when he got drafted.
Maybe one way to reach out to Giannis or get on his radar would be to get some cheap seats close to the Nets game and hold up a sign.
I've definitely thought about it. I've had friends that are like, You should go to a game and fly out and have a sign that says, "Hey, I don't have heat."
