Results tagged “landlord”

East Village actor and director Sturgis Warner isn't just facing eviction from his apartment of more than 30 years — in a theatrical twist that adds insult to injury, he might get kicked out of his home by the producers of the Blue Man Group. In 2001, the moneymen behind the indigo-hued performance troupe purchased the building that houses their theater on Lafayette Street's Colonnade Row, where the 59-year-old thespian has lived in a fifth floor walk-up since 1978. Since then, the producers have been buying out tenants to convert the residences into their own apartments, a move that housing laws allow.

Life in a notoriously squalid Chinatown boarding house only got worse after the city tried to bring the building at 81 Bowery up to code, the Village Voice reports. For years, poor immigrant tenants have paid around $100 a month for tiny cubicles on the kitchen-less fourth floor of the lodging house, where they share two shower stalls, a urinal, and four toilets. But after the city evacuated tenants last year because of fire code violations, the landlord tore down the tenants' handmade partitions, which blocked the sprinklers but had given residents a slight sense of privacy.

Astoria property owner Santino DiFiore has a permit to build a six-story "DiFiore Tower" next to his other four-story building, where hairdresser JoAnn McGurty Sullivan, 42, has been living in a rent-controlled apartment off-and-on since childhood. The other tenants on her side the building have all vacated, but she's proving to be the fly in DiFiore's ointment, because doesn't want the landlord to brick in nine out of her ten windows to accommodate the new building. Apparently one window just isn't good enough for Sullivan, who's managed to get the Department of Buildings to issue a stop-work order. She tells the Post, "[DiFiore] took my life, shook it up and threw it on the floor—all for greed."

The Real Estate Group of New York released its August data on the Manhattan rental market yesterday, "Renters have been able to take advantage of relatively bargain prices, which continue to significantly lag in year-over-year trends, while this flurry of activity has led to decreasing inventories around Manhattan good news for landlords and property managers." Notably, in non-doorman buildings, rents for studios dropped 8.03% vs. August 2008, while one-bedrooms were down 5.92% and two-bedroms fell 8.24%; in doorman buildings, studios were -7.09% (vs. August 2008), one-bedrooms -10.02% and two-bedroms -6.87%. TREGNY says "we’ve seen some landlords begin to test the market again this month with price increases," but "it seems to us that this is still a gamble unless one truly feels their current inventories can withstand the market’s current volatility." TREGNY's CEO Dan Baum added that landlords want their tenants, "The concessions out there right now are pretty aggressive."

Despite a lawsuit from landlords and building owners, the NY Times reports, "New York City’s tenant antiharassment law, which gave renters the right to sue their landlords in Housing Court for using threats or other disruptive tactics to try to force them out, was upheld in a State Supreme Court ruling filed Wednesday." Tenants' groups said landlords in gentrifying neighborhoods would use harassment tactics to push tenants out, but landlords, in their lawsuit, claimed it was impossible for city inspectors to determine whether harassment occurred. And speaking of landlords, the city's New York City Housing Authority overcharged tenants—thanks to a computer error—and threatened them with eviction! The Legal Aid Society said of the city's oops, "This is a population that, if they’re evicted from the Housing Authority, will enter the shelter system. The Housing Authority should have systems in place to protect these families, rather than subjecting them to the risk of eviction and homelessness."

Rats are still keeping it real in the Bronx, where a two-year-old girl was taken to the hospital with five rodent bites after her mother heard her screaming in her crib. Jonnique McKinney tells the Daily News, "She was sleeping in her bed and she woke up screaming." Exterminators had plugged up the radiator with steel wool in her Clay Avenue apartment, but nothing can stop a hungry rat with an appetite for human babies. While hitting the Google machine for this story, we learned about a horrific incident that happened last month in Louisiana, where an infant girl was found dead in her crib after rats ate away at her face and limbs, then left bloody rodent footprints all over her sheets. Anyway! McKinney filed a lawsuit against her building owner last year, when her daughter was bitten, but it's only come to light now because the landlord sued the exterminator this week. Still, aren't you glad you finally know about all this? Sweet dreams!

We've all heard nightmare tales reminding us of why you shouldn't date your boss, but a Long Island woman learned an even tougher lesson when things went sour with her boyfriend, who also happened to be her landlord. Kim Hookey wanted a full 30 days notice when things went sour with boyfriend Robert Drost—because what's better than living together with your ex for the first month after everything goes haywire? Drost insisted that he wasn't trying to play Hookey; he merely was following the letter of the law which said he only had to give her ten days to pack up her things and leave his Northport house. A judge agreed with Drost that she did not have rights as a "tenant-at-will." Drost's lawyer believed the case could be summed up succinctly by saying, "He owns the house. He asked her to leave. She said she wouldn't." The Suffolk judge said the it's the first time an appellate court "has directly addressed the paramour licensee issue." A Hofstra law professor told Newsday, "It doesn't mean that when all relationships go sour that a boyfriend can evict his partner lickety-split."

Last night, the Rent Guidelines Board voted to raise rents for rent-stabilized apartments: 3% for one-year leases and 6% for two-year leases. NY1 reports, "For tenants who have lived in their building for six or more years, the increase will be either $30 or $60, whichever is more."

The Rent Guidelines Board's annual carnival of cacophony—wherein hundreds of rent-stabilized tenants shout themselves hoarse as the board votes to raise their rents again—goes down tonight at Cooper Union. Speaking to the Daily News, board chairman Marvin Markus describes the always raucous affair as "one of the rites of spring," and quips, "Maybe we'll give out Valium." Ha ha, making a mockery of "rent stabilization" is always good for a laugh.

The East Patchogue, Long Island landlord who allegedly put videocameras in a tenant's apartment to spy on the 16-year-old daughter was held on $20,000 bail. Police say that Louis Basco, a self-employed handyman, "wired surveillance cameras to peer into the 16 year old's bedroom and bathroom. They say he gained access from her attic, where he comes and goes as the property owner." Tenant Robert Hayducka said, "He had a camera in our ceiling, which there were holes in my bathroom and in my daughter's room. Nowhere else were there holes but in my daughter's room." It's unclear how long the monitoring has been going on, but the police found enough circumstantial evidence to arrest him. In the mean time, the family has issued an order of protection against him.

An East Patchogue, Long Island landlord was arrested when a video camera was found in a tenant's apartment. WCBS 2 reports, "A 16-year-old teen who lives in the apartment with her parents found the camera and called police...[She] told her father she noticed her room on a monitor in her landlord's apartment, and when she looked further, she found the camera in her ceiling." A video camera was also found in the bathroom. Louis Bosco, a "self-employed handyman," was charged with unlawful surveillance. The teen's father said, "It doesn't feel very good. It feels like you want to hurt him. I really would like to go over there and kill him. I know I shouldn't say that but I really want to hurt this guy."

There's good news for the famously decaying Windermere, a complex of three 1881 apartment buildings in Hell's Kitchen that was landmarked in 2005. The Japanese owner of the structure, Masako Yamagata, has finally agreed to a settlement with seven tenants who had to be evacuated in 2007 because of the extreme decay. They'll collectively share $2.6 million in exchange for relinquishing claims on their apartments, and Yamagata has also agreed to pay $1.1 million in civil penalties to the city for failing to maintain the building. A judge had issued a court order last year requiring Yamagata to repair the landmark, but the city had been unable to enforce it because he was in Japan. Once a buyer expressed serious interest in purchasing the Windermere, Yamagata finally settled so he could unload it for an undisclosed sum. The buyer has promised make all necessary repairs to the complex, which was popular with single working women and artists at the turn of the 20th century. When it opened, it was known for its technological marvels like the hydraulic elevator and telephone.

A Long Island man made an unsuccessful attempt at taking the life of his landlord, whose house he was renting a room in, by setting the residence on fire Friday night. Not as fortunate as the landlord and his girlfriend who both escaped the blaze safely was the man's boa constrictor—its head was cut off and left in front of the landlord's door before the fire was set. 45-year-old Jose Rios was arrested early Saturday morning in Central Islip after showing up at his sister's home wielding a knife and telling everyone there, "I can't go home. I killed everyone in that house and you're next." The landlord, Larry Maxwell, and his girlfriend, Jorene Palms, were able to get out of the house because Rios tried to alert Palms of the fire he had ignited with gasoline and a lighter. Rios later told police that he "wanted (Maxwell) to die." Maxwell said that although Rios sometimes behaved erratically, he "could be the nicest guy you'd ever meet." Charges for Rios include arson and animal cruelty for killing his snake Max, which may or may not have been named after the landlord.

Tenants enduring abysmal conditions in their Washington Heights apartment building have been granted a one year rent reprieve in a settlement with their landlord, a deal orchestrated with help from the Community Legal Resource Network. Now if they could just get the landlord, Carmine Alessandro, to make the long-overdue repairs; after nearly a month since the settlement, Alessandro has yet to start the agreed-upon work. And there's a lot to be done: The six-story rat-infested building's elevator has been broken on and off for five years, residents have been without heat and hot water for most of the past year, and 77-year-old Julia Sepulveda has a 3-foot-wide hole in her ceiling that exposes her bathroom to her upstairs neighbor's apartment. "Whenever I shower, I have to do it under an umbrella," she tells the News. As for the elevator, which the Department of Buildings deems one of the worst in the city, Alessandro blames the tenants: "We fix the elevator frequently and they keep breaking it."

A 70-year-old man and his 35-year-old, uh, roommate have been arrested for threatening their landlord's agent with gruesome torture. Elderly architect Ekkehart Schwarz and his younger roommate, Vassileios Giamagas, allegedly threatened "death and torture," against an unnamed man sent by the landlord to collect $265,000 in back rent. Prosecutor James Meadows says the two stopped paying rent on a restaurant space at 68 West Third Street because the landlord would not make necessary repairs. According to the Daily News, when the landlord's representative came to collect, Giamagas and another man forced him at gunpoint to sign a document stating that $50,000 had been paid, and threatened to sodomize him if he didn't comply. Later, after threatening the agent with torture via "a hammer and pliers," they allegedly forced him to sign blank checks for them, one of which they cashed for $25,000. As for Schwarz's roommate situation, a neighbor tells the News, "It was very mysterious."

A young woman who moved to the Upper East Side after graduation is suing the landlord of her old building because the elderly married superintendents would sometimes enter her apartment without her knowledge. According to court papers, 22-year-old Navah Meller has been left "traumatized" and "unable to sleep" because super Ilona Biro, age 79, allegedly rearranged her belongings, rolling up a tube of toothpaste, opening care packages from her mom, and folding her panties without permission. Meller tells the Daily News, "It's all very creepy. My unmentionables are such a private product... New York is the greatest city in the world—who doesn't want to live here? But this experience has ruined that a bit for me. I was so taken advantage of." Her lawyer is seeking $10 million, and says, "I can't say I know for sure what these folks were doing with Miss Meller's undergarments." But Biro's 84-year-old husband George insists Meller gave them keys and said they could come in to fix leaks. He swears, "I don't know anything about her underwear."

Yesterday the State Assembly passed legislation that would scale back increases on rent-regulated apartments statewide, returning to regulation tens of thousands of units that were converted to market rate in recent years. According to the Times, the bill would also lower to 10 percent, from 20 percent, the amount a landlord can raise the rent after an apartment's been vacated; limit the owner's ability to recover a rent-regulated apartment for personal use; and increase fines for landlords who harass their tenants to try and drive them away.

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development spent more than $4 million this year to maintain 113 buildings that have been all but abandoned by their landlords. These landlords are required to reimburse taxpayers for the work, but until then the city places a lien on the properties, most of which are located in Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Prospect Heights and East New York. Yet despite the emergency repairs, conditions at some of these residences are still utterly appalling. Angelica Jimenez of Bushwick tells the Daily News, "Every night, we have rats in my apartment—big ones! They walk all over the kitchen and that's not nice. I kill them. I have no choice, I can't afford to move." City Councilwoman Diana Reyna sees a pattern, and speculates that landlords in Bushwick are neglecting repairs to drive out low-income residents, thus enabling them to cash in on the neighborhood's proximity to trendy Williamsburg by renting to hipsters.

Joseph Wintje, a 51-year-old convicted rapist and registered sex offender, is suing his former landlord because she allegedly evicted him from his Brooklyn apartment for racist reasons. According to the Post, Wintje's discrimination complaint against 70-year-old landlord Domenica Pedone asserts that after just four days in the apartment he was given an ultimatum by Pedone when she noticed his black girlfriend around. Wintje says Pedone told him, "I don't want her coming over here." But Pedone insists she only evicted Wintje after her neighbors said he was a "bad man," what with his rape-y past and all. One thing's for sure; after this Post article, Wintje's going to have a tough time signing a lease anywhere with access to the Google machine.

Tenants of 64 Troutman Street in Bushwick were joined by City Council members at City Hall Friday to announce a lawsuit against their landlord under the Tenant Protection Act. Passed last March, the law is intended to protect tenants whose landlords are trying to drive them out of the building using such tactics as turning off the hot water or ripping out the toilet.

Meet 87-year-old Anna Reyneso, a Washington Heights resident who, when she needs to use the bathroom at night, must awaken her 50-year-old daughter to guide her by flashlight to a vacant apartment down the hall. That’s because her landlord, Dorothea Levine, sent contractors in January to rip out Reyneso’s bathroom toilet, tub, floors and walls--a harassment tactic the Daily News says is part of an ongoing battle over the 54-unit, rent-stabilized building's future. Three other tenants had their bathrooms removed, and the building has so many violations the city has taken the rare step of suing Levine to take over the building. Of course, two can play at that game: landlords are suing the city right back in order to stop the recently-passed Tenant Protection Act.

The ex-girlfriend of a 49-year-old Bronx woman is suspected of murdering her former lesbian companion after the victim was found stabbed to death in her bathtub. Cecelia Rodriguez had recently been kicked out of the pair's Bronx apartment after the breakup, but reportedly was distraught when she heard the news of Olga Rodriguez's death. The landlord who discovered Rodriguez's body was skeptical of the histrionics. "She was acting-crying. The crying was not real. "[The victim] was always complaining about her."

The NY State Division of Housing and Community Renewal finally closed a loophole in rent regulations that would have allowed owners and landlords leaving government-subsidized housing programs to increase rents to market rates by citing "unique and peculiar" circumstances. According to the NY Times, some tenants' rents would have skyrocketed from $981/month to $4,500/month for a two-bedroom on the Upper West Side and from $1,000/month to $5,275/month for a three-bedroom, also on the Upper West...

An appellate court ruled this week that a 71-year-old woman could remain in the West Village apartment she shares with her two cats, despite a no-pets clause in her lease. Siiri Marvits has lived in the same apartment for 43 years and has had her two cats Athena and Apollo for more than ten years. The Daily News reports that according to the New York City Law Journal, a landlord must begin eviction proceedings within...