Newark is older dense housing set close to the sidewalk, with the river and the bay in the air. Brick two-families and three-families, attached houses, and low walk-ups are the ordinary buildings. Winters are cold. Summers are humid and long. Damp finds basements and brick. This is not a beach house, and it is not a high-rise roof farm. It is a tight city of stacked flats and older houses sharing walls.
Roofs are often low-slope or flat, with short parapets and party walls, though some houses still carry a pitch. Heat is commonly radiators and a boiler. Cooling is a window unit. The yard, when it exists, is a rear patch or a narrow side. The front stoop is almost in the street. Plumbing and windows are old enough to be the subject of the call by themselves. Pests use the continuous wall. Water in a ceiling may belong to the flat above.
Say the building in the first breath. A house you own and live in, a two-family with someone upstairs, a three-family, or a larger brick walk-up. Say the floor. Say what failed: the roof, the heat, a stack, a sash, the bath, mice, a tiny yard that floods the cellar, or a question about your policy. If water is moving, say where it entered. If the boiler is down, say whether both flats are cold.
Have the practical facts and skip the brochure version of the city. Declarations page and deductible if this is a policy or a claim. Roof shape if this is a leak. What you saw, and in which room, if this is a pest. Newark work happens on narrow lots with street access and stairs. Mention the stair and the shared wall. They change the job.
Describe the older building you have, not a suburb and not a shore cottage. The damp, the brick, and the flat above you are the context. Pick the trade and call.