Simple.... in NYC, you cannot NORMALLY have more GAS meters than the LEGAL Occupancy of the building (only very rarely will an apt not conform to this and the exception tends to be a separate Gas meter for a heating unit for the building).There were exactly 4 Gas Meters.Once I had seen that....

It's really such a benefit to have someone of your knowledge and experience.I also wanted to comment on the point that I went through 2 catastrophes in the NYC Real Estate Market.2001 - the destruction of World Trade Centers.2007 - 2008 - The Meltdown of the Financial Centers where Ground Zero was Wall Street.These 2 catastrophes did not cause much if any slow down in the wealth building potential of NYC Real Estate for me despite owning several multi-family investments.There are various hedges that a big Metropolis like NYC offers.Detroit, being a one Industry Town (Automotive), follows the same risks that Billy Joel's "Allentown" lyrics speak about when the Steel company closed down.NYC has so many Industries, even when one, such as the Financial Crisis causes a Great Recession, even that did not lay waste the Real Estate that was bought correctly (in otherwords, soundly leveraged with reasonable loan terms and equity cushion and in good locations to protect against loss of rents, etc.)In 2005, I started a program to teach Real Estate because I felt that the Market was getting way over heated when I saw very sophisticated leverage being used by very non-sophisticated people who would not otherwise have qualified for their loans.

It is 2 bedrooms 1 bathroom with central heat.  

At SXSW I saw one of their people and they said they will have the ability to get bids on jobs like cleaning, painting and such soon - I assume this is how they make money. “ Ben Travis Pros: they are new and offer free operations for landlords and tenants Cons: new company, not mentioned on BP much Cost: “We get paid by service providers - like insurance companies, plumbing companies, screening companies, A/C and heating, moving companies..... oh you get the idea.

One such property was sold in 2010 for $141,000, and had new roof, new siding, new windows, 2 new full baths, new kitchen, new 200 amp electric service, and new heat and central air. 

Don't know about Philly but here landlords pay sewer/water and heat/hot water generally.

A heat gun and scraper works pretty good for getting the tiles up.

What heat tape can you recommend to insulate water lines?

The crime heat map on Trullia does not look horrible. 

Now that you've taken the pressure off the seller and they are no longer "in heat" you may have difficulty getting further cooperation since you did not think thus through fully and engineer this prior to spending the money.Now their problem is YOUR problem.