Is it bad that they (HR) don't know if I have one now?

Maybe you could be the boss!

Maybe you could be the boss!

As long as I'm only the boss of me, I'm good with it!

Director told me to sit back and wait for even more shit to shake out, so I will chill. But I need to make sure someone knows where I am, if I have to ask for PTO (GOD I WANT SOME), etc. So at least for that...

How long will be left? You could plant to break it, but advertise for a subletter and see what happens. You don't have to go through with it.

It's 8 months left on the lease, so sort of worthwhile, but I'll need to go back and see what my lease says about subletting, now that I've gone through all of this rigamarole with the management company. I couldn't just do it under the radar at this point. The guy only sent me the page of the lease with the $$ info on it (and my initials next to the paragraph....). The language is kind of hilarious about how we "both agree" that it's "not a penalty but is liquidated damages" since we don't know what it will actually cost the landlord to have me leave. Spoiler: It will cost them nothing, since I'm sure they will charge the next person even more than I am paying....

Landlord hikes make me think--what do they get in return for rent control? Either they're forced to, or there's something on the back end that makes it worth while, right? My company is now squeezing every legal cent out of me now that they've announced rent control, but the bulk of the increases were certainly not controlled.

If they'd increased rent like I expected after the remodel of the shared areas, I'd have had to move out. But now my rent is $xxx1.05 (I serious don't remember the first three digits--seems I can recall three digits, and now that the last three are ridic, those are the ones that stick) and it's not the $300 odd raises from before.

And then, if I move out, they can set a higher level and start again with the next folks, right?

Usually, yeah. In NYC, "rent stabilization" put a cap on the annual increase and a different formulation for how much the landlord could raise the rent in between tenants.

So very relevant.

Landlord hikes make me think--what do they get in return for rent control? Either they're forced to, or there's something on the back end that makes it worth while, right?

Rent control might ensure more stable long-term tenants with more pride of place, resulting in fewer months of rent payments lost to moves and less extensive repair/reno costs when moves do occur. I think some combo of that and my landlord knowing my mom has kept my rent the same since I moved in (knock wood).

Is everywhere in NYC stabilised, Jesse?

a different formulation for how much the landlord could raise the rent in between tenants

I did not know that. I thought that was free money. I think I will do some research after work.

When I was there, it only applied to apartments under $2K, so not nicer or larger apartments. And the between-tenants increase was to pay for sprucing up the place, new appliances, etc. I always assumed that the landlord counted (for example) the cost of painting the apartment to be what it would cost to hire painters, and then just had the super do it.

Spoiler: It will cost them nothing, since I'm sure they will charge the next person even more than I am paying....

In some places, once they get a new tenant they can't charge you more for the lease. If that makes sense--so if they require three months notice, but have someone move in a month after you give notice, they can't charge you those extra two months.