Do these comments work any more?

Those tenants need to organize as soon as possible. They certainly have recourse in a situation like this. For one thing, they can hold up eviction proceedings etc. for a long time. Additionally, there is a strict mechanism in place with respect to conversion for family members. Landlords keep trying it. They always used to lose, but owing to 20 years of crooked politicians and landlords the courts have been becoming more and more lax.

Finally, if I were those tenants I'd also file personally against the landlords ie not in landlord tenant court. Cause of action? Something like perpetrating a fraud. (I'd have to look at the applicable law.) I can assure you those two do not want to go through a long discovery process with 14 different tenants and defend as many suits. There entire life (particularly) financial life can be explored that way. I'd say if these 2 genuinely are nefarious they won't want that.

This should be fair forewarning to all tenants. Organize a tenant's association now. Gather as much information about your landlord (and I don't mean the managing agent) as you can. Find out the rent histories of the apartments. Find out how long they have been stabilized, controlled or de-controllled and under what conditions.

When you need to, get a good lawyer, and DON'T BE AFRAID TO FIGHT. When landlords use unscrupulous methods they can be punished. By tenants are the guardians of their own rights now that the law has continuously been abandoning them.

This is actually a fair warning to the City of New York. If the city would do away with the antiquated rent laws that artificially suppress the supply of rentable apartments, landlords would have no incentive to do things like this. If any of you were sitting on a piece of real estate that was worth millions I imagine you too would shoo away your doo-gooder world view for enough time to cash in.

Delete the first ad hom attack. One is sufficient.

Let's just say Ram is woefully ignorant of the statistics.

Oh God! Dean Yatrakis!!!! You've just brought all the horrible memories rushing back.

It's not true that younger lower paid workers subsidize older higher paid workers. First of all, there is a 200K de-regulation cap. So it's not like some hipster's 1800 studio is supporting Donald Trump's rent stabilized apartment. Second, a significant portion, the numbers elude me just at this moment, of rent-stabilized tenants are over 65 on a fixed income ie not necessarily richer than your average hipster.

If you are young and feeling overburdened by your rent, place blame where blame is due. Landlords who unscrupulously and illegally raised rents during the 80s and 90s, government that turned their heads and speculators that have no vested interest in affordable housing.

Moreover, I would be careful vis-a-vis the urban myths you perpetrate that kind of group brain wash prevents tenants from fighting landlord abuses. Some feel "lucky" to have an apartment at all. Others fell o well it's only 300 over what it ought to be, it's cheaper than I would be able to find now.

Finally, my last argument still stands. If only 10% of apartments are stabilized/controlled and only those making under 200K can live in them -- who is subsidizing whom? A fraction of the 10% of subsidized tenants -- let's say 50% -- of the entire market is being subsidized by some much larger percentage of the entire rental population? Think about it. How much is each "lower paid" younger tenant -- let's say 35% of the rental population (but it's probably more) -- contributing to the support of 5% of the rental population. What does that add up to?

I'd argue that unfairly raised rents drove up all rental costs during the 80s and 90s b/c unstabilized landlords set market value and the unregulated market followed.

You are just feeling (rightfully) squeezed.

I actually don't feel squeezed at all. I made the choice to live in NYC, and accept responsiblity for my decision. I simply don't agree with your argument. Even if 10% of the apratments in NYC are stabilized, that is a sizeable number of units. Look at it this way, if all the world was able to all the sudden increase oil prouction by a mere 10% - tell me what you think would happen to a price of barrell of oil. Apartments in a city the size of NYC are just as much of a commodity as petroleum, and a 10% incease in the supply of apartment units would significant reduce the price of rents.

Again, no one wants to see grandma run out into the streets, and I'm not advocating for price-gouging cheats, but ne'er-do-wells and trustfund "starving" artists should not be allowed to benefit from these laws.

Actually, rent stabilization laws aren't the only contributors to the dearth of reasonably-priced apartments in Manhattan. Nor, in my opinion, are they the most significant contributors.

1. The number of apartments owned by the various universities - especially NYU and Columbia - grows every year. These aptartment buildings are some of the most expensive real estate ON THE PLANET. One example of a professor who just qualified is a family friend, who just sold his million-plus apartment south of Union Square to move into a subsidized apartment in the same NYU area. He gets an apartment twice the size of mine, at half the rent, a few blocks away from me, and has a bank account and income that dwarf my own. The money from the sale? Used to purchase a HUGE house with land upstate.

In the old days, we had a name for this sort of thing. We called it "welfare". For the rich.

My head just exploded.

2. Remember the World Trade Center? Sure you do. I'm not talking about 9/11. I'm talking about the controversy in the 60's, when they were planning the development, and decided to obliterate a neighborhood. Projects like that (hello, West Side Stadium? Time Warner Center? I'm looking at YOU) destroy opportunities to create large-scale, human neighborhoods where countless thousands could live, work and pay reasonable ("market value") rents, while leaving a small percentage of subsidized housing for cops, firemen, teaches, etc.

Instead, we get to make poor schmucks like the Johnson family even wealthier, cuz God knows Daddy Johnson's hookers ain't gettin' any cheaper.

3. Investment vehicles. That expensive euro that forced you to cancel your plans to go to Paris this spring? Turns out European investors are using it to buy U.S. assets. Since the stock market is iffy and the bond market has been topped out for a while, these investors are parking it in U.S. real estate. As The World's Second Home, New York is the obvious first, and most familiar choice for these investments. So European firms buy cheap dollars with their euros, buy New York real estate, and wait for the euro's climb to reverse, at which point they sell the real estate and buy back the cheaper euros with the appreciated dollars. So little guys like you and I compete against multi-national corporations when we try to buy ourselves an apartment in Manhattan.

Good luck with that.

Come now, is it really fair to drag Yatrakis into this - and putting her picture up too - when this really has nothing to do with her? The story pertains to her daughter - can we get a picture of HER instead?

Yatrakis' office is one of the most unpleasant parts of the administration to deal with - the lady herself, she's actually a fairly nice person when I've gotten to chat with her (twice in freshman year, never thereafter) but trying to get an appointment to see her is practically impossible. Those flappers that control her datebook are horrendously self-important on her behalf - "Dean Yatrakis is *too busy* to meet with (unimportant and lowly) students (such as yourself)." Sure, that's why she's teh dean of student affairs. Grrrrr - bad memories rushing back already. Must stop now.