From the Daily News:The rent is so damn low in a Greenpoint flophouse that residents - many who pay under $300 a month - refuse to leave despite an infestation of rats, bedbugs, and even silverfish.
Nearly three dozens tenants of the Greenpoint Hotel on Manhattan Ave. are suing landlord Jay Deutchman citing disgusting living conditions such as vermin, collapsing ceilings, and shared flooded hallway bathrooms replete with a nauseating odor.
“It’s the only thing I got,” said Anthony Mirabal, 45, who pays nothing to live in the single-room-occupancy (SRO) building in squalor.
Mirabel, a retired U.S. customs agent, said he won a case against the building’s previous owner receiving a six-year rent credit and is now taking Deutchman to court because the place has become inhabitable.
Department of Housing Preservation and Development records showed 514 open violations connected to the various addresses of the Greenpoint Hotel - 66 Clay St. and 1109 - 113 Manhattan Ave.
And things are so bad that the agency is also suing Deutchman.
Tenants’ advocates said Deutchman - who took over the building in 2009 - is purposely letting the place rot hoping to push out the poor occupants and hike up the rents.
This slumlord has quite a rep in Rockaway as well.
7 comments:
The sad thing is, I'm sure there are many struggling artists in the surrounding area who would love to pay almost twice these rates and not complain for the privilege of affordable housing in Brooklyn.
Housing may very well be THE issue that breaks NYC if the DoH continues only to address the symptoms and not the causes.
Mirabel, a retired U.S. customs agent, said he won a case against the building’s previous owner receiving a six-year rent credit and is now taking Deutchman to court because the place has become inhabitable.
Darn those slumlords making places so livable. Now everyone's going to want to move in.
Nice proofing/editing, Daily News.
You get what you pay for.
Mirabel is 45 and is a RETIRED Customs Agent. So where is his pension check going? And let's say he is getting 40K/year x 30 years = $1.2 million. And please don't give me that "he did his 20 years, he deserves it" response.
So, you can live in squalor in New York City but you should not be able to choose a 20 oz soda?
Man, the midget Mayor is a mental midget as well.
typical of nyc to have pieces of crap like this. ick!!! Who lives here? rats?
They might as well live in the NYC train stations which is prized as one of the dirtiest train stations in the world! HOORAY!
so who is actually paying rent? one tenant is paying $300 a month, another is paying nothing for the next 6 years etc etc how can any building owner afford to make repairs? Have you priced a contractor that is licensed to work in a residential building lately? We get $700 a month from our tenant and we can barely pay the taxes on the house let alone major repairs but they have a lease, we can't break it because taxes went up more than we expected. If there is any major repair needed on the house we're screwed.
Post a Comment