Extra, Extra

Richard J. Codey was the best Governor of New Jersey in the past several decades. Jon Corzine makes me glad I don't live in NJ, although I would have said the same about Doug Forrester. Why couldn't that guy who looked like Peter Griffin from Family Guy have gotten elected? He had some bad ads during the primary with him chopping things with an ax.

I lives at 562 7th St from July 98-July 99. We had hot water, the no-heat thing was in effect a few times. No one mentioned that Walter is like Igor ( i feel bad for him). Wow i feel lucky I actually got my security deposit back. No park slope realtor will work for them it is amazing they still have the building.

Walter was not experimenting with cutlery and electrical outlets when I lived there. His arms almost touch the ground and I think she makes him live in the basement that is why I said I felt bad. They suck-can they get the building taken away from them?

Yes, he definitely lives in the basement, where he urinates into a bucket which he empties onto the front steps every morning.

I'm not sure the building can be taken from them, but eventually someone will sue them and they'll have to sell the place to pay legal fees.

Okay, I totally almost moved into a place owned by Gloria and Walter...they do seem nice/quirky at first, but there was that smell when I sat with them in their kitchen reviewing the lease, instinct told me to run like hell... The rooms were massively huge I recall. Interesting to see how bad they are.

Rule #1: Never live in the same building that your landlord does and better to work with a landlord that has a managing agent (in Park Slope that's Joe Berman and the Kotsonsis').

July 2006

Title: bad landlords, really bad landlords and being on the run.

In 2001 there was a fire involving a building full of Yale New Haven students in off campus housing in New Haven Connecticut. It was a place called Cambridge Oxford Apartments.

The April 25, 2001 issue of The Yale Daily News ( yaledailynews.com ) is currently online and has archives. The current link is: www.yaledailynews.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=15588 that tells of it. It is the main campus news. At the time of the blaze there were a lot of people screaming and 14 fire trucks. It was not a small fire.

At the time I was not a Yale student, but lived with one at that address, the Cambridge Oxford Apts on High Street. I was a young girl, 14, but very small for my age. One of the girls I was traveling with was on the run, wanted for probation violations and other stuff. And my dad was a cop in Hartford County Connecticut and looking for us both. More on that near the end. Don’t worry, you will be entertained.

Over 60 firefighters were there. Dense black smoke filled the hallways real fast. Smoke from burning plastics is really bad.

The main fire chief that showed up was fire marshal Phil Cappucci. The building had been bought months earlier by someone named Odis Coleman.

The Yale News covered it and the fire is also registered in another archive by Miami University and The International Association of Campus Fire Safety Officials which tells of its severity. The current direct link for them is: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0104&L=ohiofire&T=0&F=&S=&P=4377 for more details.

The report tells of exposed wiring, that it was a death trap, that the fire was blamed on the building's poor physical condition and upkeep, that it was all reported yet nothing was done, the typical stuff.

The respiratory illness ( a bad one ) myself and one other person have now are linked to toxic poisoning created by gases of burning plastics, the fire we were in when I was 14. This is what having a bad landlord can do. Their negligence, the dangerous conditions they leave behind, can lead to a lifelong illness.

In going to trembicky.com, what do we see again as the subject of new complaints, of fires and fire hazards, now a landlord of a building full of 240 elderly and chronically disabled people: the same landlord as the Yale fire, Odis Coleman.

When we saw this same person on trembicky.com our mouths dropped to the floor. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing on the screen. Odis Coleman, the same landlord as the Yale fire now accused again of more fires, fire hazards and accused of retaliation against tenants who he believes have filed written complaints against him. And there are photographs.

I am filled with shame living in what’s supposed to be a wealthy state and seeing actual accounts of people being victimized and treated coarsely by landlords.

Like I mentioned, in 2001 when we were at the Cambridge Oxford Apts and I was 14, one of the girls I was traveling with was on the run, wanted for probation violations and other stuff. The state probation officer she had was a bad one. There were a lot of complaints filled against him. There is an example I can share.

The New York Times (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: May 19, 1999 page B.6 tells of a State of Connecticut probation officer who threatened to send young male parolees back to prison unless they had sex with him. The officer, Richard Straub, 63, was accused of sexually assaulting young men from 1986 to 1996 in his office in Danielson, his home in Killingly Connecticut and in his car.

The Hartford Courant, a city newspaper in Hartford Connecticut also tells of it and they have an online database ( like The New York Times has an online database ) for the public that has all their articles and newspapers ( if your state library has paid for the service). The 14 articles start in 1996 and go to 1999, describing 212 counts of sexual assault, going back to 1981 and even 1967 when he was a Big Brother to two boys he met at the Boston YMCA and was arrested. In 1999 he was sentenced to 15 years.

In 2001 when we were at the Cambridge Oxford Apts and I was 14, the girl I traveled with was 15, real good looking and could pass for 20 easily because of her size and looks. Her brother, now age 21 was also on the run for probation violation and guess who he had arguments with, a Connecticut probation officer named Richard Straub. The accounts he shared with us from when he was 14 were hard to believe. Extremely hard to believe. Then he showed us the newspapers with all the articles and the cops arresting the guy.

The articles of Richard Straub tell of how other senior probation officers complained to the police and other officials yet nothing was done as far back as 1981. The charges in 1996 included sexual assault and using unlawful restraint against his victims ( he used handcuffs on victims ). Some of the boys were 14.

Landlords, as well as state probation officers, are authoritive figures and they are individuals who are entrusted to the well-being and welfare of others.

There is no one watching what they do. Evidently.

They both can and do get away with a lot and its almost easy. If they are bad news people, they were usually bad news from an early age.

As a result they become professionals at getting out of bad situations because of bad accusations at an early age. They become professionals at getting out of any suspicions that come up. And they know that no one is going to take any action against them. And many, in their past, have tried and failed and they see this. As was the case with Richard Straub and the landlord from the Yale fire.

Myself and others I know are filled with shame when someone asks where I come from. Hartford County Connecticut.

Kathleen Lindberg

Health councilor for teens, Hartford County Connecticut.

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