Few things in city life provoke as much fear and dread – and ultimate defeat – as the apartment search. No matter how you slice it, the undertaking is inevitably stressful.

Not only is there the realization that you never get enough for the money, there is also the dance of the broker’s fee, and, if you are us, your total aversion to paying it. And, as if paying the 15% of a year’s rent weren’t enough, you always have to have that awkward, too-familiar-too-fast relationship with the broker. They tell you more than you want to know about themselves while showing you places, then give you their analysis of the real estate market – as if all of this justifies the enormity of their fee.

In fact, the anticipated hassles of the dreaded apartment search has been enough to keep us in places for extra years or two here and there when where we were living had clearly outlived its usefulness.

We stayed in a roach-infested studio in the 90s on Riverside despite the fact that we were two people and it was one room because we were averse to forking out the broker’s fee. And lazy.

We stayed in an overpriced one-bedroom in the 70s off Central Park West because we were averse to forking out the broker’s fee – and also, maybe, too averse to admitting Manhattan was no longer working for us. Plus, we were lazy.

But now we’re in Brooklyn, and I am pregnant, and there were a million things wrong with our Dean Street apartment – the biggest one being the fact that our 28-year-old quasi-hipster law-firm receptionist, would-be-real-estate-mogul landlord, Tonya, refused to fix anything, including the boiler. When we told her it broke again, leaving us without heat, she said, “You guys….” as if we were wayward children, rather than tenants paying her $2,000 a month (on time!).

Of the many differences between living in Brooklyn and living in Manhattan, there is perhaps none as striking as the relationship you have with your landlord.

Andy and I lived on the Upper West Side for 10 years in three different apartments. In each one, we had contact with the landlord only at the signing and renewing of our lease. The rest of the time, we dealt only with the super.

But that all changed when we came to Brooklyn.

Tonya made everything personal.

We should have sensed this when she insisted on “checking out” our old apartment before renting us our new one. But the place was well located, it had a washer/dryer, and, best of all, we’d found it on Craig list, and, so, avoided the broker’s fee.

Before deciding to move, we had been in lease-renewal negotiations with Tonya for nearly four moths. Here’s what happened: She asked if we wanted to renew at the same price. We said yes. She said she’d get us the lease. But rather than doing so, she asked us if we’d renew the lease for $100 more a month. We thought about it and said yes, but only if she fixed the bathroom tiles, which were coming up in droves. She said she had to think about it. Then the boiler broke the camel’s back.

So, rather than continuing the seemingly endless back and forth, we called to give her 30 days’ notice.

“No way!” she said, her ire up. “You can’t give me notice! I’ll evict you.”

“You’ll evict us?” Andy said. We knew Tonya would be upset, but had not anticipated her being totally nonsensical.

“Yeah,” she said. “I can totally do it.”

Technically, she was right – the old lease had expired the month before and, with all the back and forth, we had yet to sign a new one. The question was: Why bother?

“We’re leaving in 30 days,” Andy said, trying a tone of reasoned calm. “I guess I don’t understand the point here.”

“There doesn’t have to be a point!” Our landlord fired back at him. “Even if you leave the place, I can still mess up your renting record!”

“Is there such a thing as a ‘renting record?'” I asked Andy when he told me what happened.

“Not really,” he said. “But if she files court papers there’ll be a record.”

“There’s no way she’ll actually do it,” I said, dismissing the thought with a wave of the hand. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

The next day, a greasy-haired lawyer in polyester pants served us with papers.

Searching for a new apartment was suddenly a lot less dreadful. In fact, we were eager to fork out the broker’s fee.

That weekend, we stopped into one of the little real estate brokers on Court Street. The only agent there was a young, attractive woman who introduced herself as Sandra. We told her we wanted a two-bedroom with a dishwasher and without the strange, windowless middle room you find in so many brownstones. She told us she’d just gotten something in that sounded perfect and, on our obligatory awkward with-broker walk to it, informed us that she was studying to be a nutritionist.

The place was perfect – large, high-ceilinged, and sunny. It was deeper into Carroll Gardens, and one stop further on the F than our current place, but with vestiges of old Italian neighborhood intact, the area felt more charming. Which left us with only one question.

“What about the landlord?” I asked. “She owns a lot of buildings in the area and has property managers and supers who take care of them. She’s very professional.”

We looked at each other with the raised-eyebrow equivalent of sighs of relief.

“We’ll take it,” Andy said. Who knew looking for an apartment could be so painless? On the way back to the office to start the paperwork, Sandra said, “Right now, it really is a renter’s market.”

“Our first toast will be to the renter’s market,” Andy said that night, even though he knew I wouldn’t be drinking. We had gone to the French place on our corner for a celebration dinner.

“And our second will be to Tonya and her lawyer – good riddance!”

Seated and checking out the menus, we hadn’t looked up when our server appeared.

“Our specials tonight are – oh my God, not you!”

It was our landlord, in all her pigtailed and low-ridered glory.

“Since when have you worked here, Tonya?” I asked.

“Since none of your business,” she said, narrowing her eyes, turning on her heels and heading for the kitchen.

“Let’s get out of here before she spits on our food,” I said.

“Yeah,” Andy agreed. “Or evicts us.”

The Brooklyn Chronicles is a work of fiction. Previous installments are available at www.nysun.com/archive_chronicles.php. The author can be reached at kschwartz@nysun.com.