Tenants Rights

Wrath Of The Scumlords: NYCHA Reneges On Recent City Funding With Shitty Roof Renovation And Secret Water Toxicity.

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https://i0.wp.com/www.gkcindustries.com/docs/GKCIndustries/Lafayette%20Houses/aerial%20-%20lafayette%20houses.jpgThe Lafayette Houses. Storm resilient roofs not included.

Brooklyn, N.Y.

NY Daily News: NYCHA signs off on botched Brooklyn roof repairs that allowed water pooling

A major rehab effort failed to fix the roof of a building at a Brooklyn housing development, but NYCHA still signed off on the job as complete — just one of many failures noted in a city audit to be released Monday.

So when it rained this past Nov. 30, about 5 inches of water pooled on the roof of Building Five at the Lafayette Houses in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. The pooling, which remained two days later, can cause leaks, and it’s just the type of problem the rehab of all roofs in the Brooklyn development was supposed to address.

City Controller Scott Stringer’s audit describes a pattern of ineptitude in NYCHA’s struggle to repair its aging buildings. Of NYCHA’s 320 developments, 270 are more than 30 years old and 114 were built before 1967. Lafayette, for example, opened in 1962, the year John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.

Lafayette was part of a $300 million, three-year effort by Mayor de Blasio to fix roofs throughout public housing. NYCHA paid Universal Construction Resources $10.9 million to rehab roofs on all seven Lafayette buildings.

After the November rainstorm, Stringer’s auditors randomly checked Building Five and found the pooled water. Two days later they found it was still there, contrary to industry standards that require water to drain completely within 48 hours.

Stringer’s team also found minor ponding on the roofs of several other NYCHA developments that had been certified as repaired, including the Sumner Houses in Brooklyn, King Towers in Manhattan and South Beach Houses in Staten Island.

Lafayette was part of a $300 million, three-year effort by Mayor de Blasio to fix roofs throughout public housing. NYCHA paid Universal Construction Resources $10.9 million to rehab roofs on all seven Lafayette buildings.

NYCHA could provide no proof that it had actually inspected the work on Building Five roof two years after the repair was completed, even though the warranty required semiannual inspections.

And because NYCHA didn’t identify the problem within the one-year warranty, the taxpayers are on the hook for the lousy repair job.

This is only the start of the nearly half century long neglect of NYCHA housing, the real affordable housing program. And true to their nature when it comes to actually handling the effects of it, they botch another job they are entrusted with.

This recent oversight and criminally incompetent offense comes just months after a one billion dollars and 10 year renovation budget to repair all of the buildings leaky roofs. But after this recent revelation which came out 10 months later after the fact, the residents of these dilapidated buildings and decrepit, neglected apartments probably will look at this allocation with collective apprehension. Mostly it will entail buying extra pots and pans. Hey, maybe they will be dispensed as new amenities to go along with the free Wifi as part of the encompassing new budget.

With this exhibition of gross indifference the spread of more mold and other infrastructure damage from shorting light fixtures to ceiling collapses and wall damage leading to new egress for rodents and roaches of unusual size. It’s going to take another 300 million to fix the damages caused by the roof that they dismissively thought was sound.

How can something of such expenditure and magnitude, especially coming from an administration that is so (but mostly feigns) concern for the less fortunate and from an government organization that is indebted and responsible for the tenancy. Well, look no further than a decision by NYCHA commissioner and technocrat Shoya Olatoye leveled on the Department of Investigation. Ms. Olatoye decided to kill funding for city’s independent inspector general in charge of regulating the housing authority just to save a comparably measly 200 grand. The timing of this decision is equally awful and suspicious.

NY Daily News: NYCHA rejects funding boost for inspector general who discovered fraud, corruption at agency

Last month, Housing Authority Chairwoman Shola Olatoye notified DOI Commissioner Mark Peters she would not grant his request for an extra $199,000, bringing the NYCHA IG’s total budget from $3.3 million to $3.5 million.

In an April 13 letter to Olatoye obtained by the News, Peters notes that last year his office uncovered $6.5 million in fraud, opened 270 investigations and developed 53 criminal cases involving NYCHA staff and tenants.

The inspector general has also issued three critical reports about NYCHA mismanagement, including a stunning revelation that a caretaker falsely claimed smoke detectors were functioning shortly before a fire engulfed an apartment and killed two children.

This may be why this leaky roof report is so late.

Housing Authority spokeswoman Zodet Negron made clear the agency’s historic money crunch was the rationale for the decision. “NYCHA is facing crippling budget cuts ahead that will have a direct impact on the quality of life of our residents, Negron said.

So, the way to save and reallocated funding is to fire the guy responsible for pointing out the profligate waste and corruption in the system.

The answer to such opaqueness and obfuscation being employed and encouraged in the NYCHA higher echelons is to take matters in your own hands. Without resorting to threats to city workers like what happened recently. But even that is, of course unsurprisingly, a tall order. Take the trials and tribulations of reporter Louis Flores who runs the local borough blog Progress Queens, he has been chronicling for few years on the amount of lead in the water service of lines of NYCHA buildings via FOIL requests and discovered a disturbing increase in the toxicity and lead levels over the last four years which included the over threshold amount of 15 parts per billion, which was the amount found in the drinking water of the city of Flint, Michigan.

Mr. Flores found 13 housing projects that exceeded the safe amount from 10 to 100 times.

  • Metro Plaza North, Spanish Harlem, Manhattan : 1,249 ppb
  • Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Crown Heights, Brooklyn : 947 ppb
  • Berry Houses, Staten Island : 675 ppb
  • Forest Hills Co-Op, Forest Hills, Queens : 541 ppb
  • Vladeck II Houses, Lower East Side, Manhattan : 99 ppb
  • White Houses, Spanish Harlem, Manhattan: 89 ppb
  • Ravenswood Houses, Astoria, Queens : 88 ppb
  • Vladeck Houses, Lower East Side, Manhattan : 53 ppb
  • Haber Houses, Coney Island, Brooklyn : 39 ppb
  • Drew-Hamilton Houses, Harlem, Manhattan : 37 ppb
  • Woodside Houses, Woodside, Queens : 32 ppb
  • Queensbridge South Houses, Long Island City, Queens : 17 ppb
  • Vladeck Houses, Lower East Side, Manhattan : 17 ppb

Mr. Flores also found in his request of many buildings below the lead contamination amount but still above 5 ppb, which according to reports from the Flint scandal, is still toxic enough to be a health hazard.

This even got the attention of Attorney General Preet Bharara, as it got included in his investigation on de Blasio’s multifaceted and multi-pronged pay to play shadow government administration.

Alas, A.G. Bharara got sacked by Figurehead Trump on the advice of his shyster advisers which put the end of the case of the Teflon mayor away for good. And now the Department of Environmental Protection has watered down (absolutely pun intended) the most recent FOIL request by Progress Queens with redactions and incompletions, with the standout refusal for determining water service toxicity in a housing project in East Harlem. Kismet works in amazing ways, especially for vile scummy people.

So now the residents of the projects have to deal with water they don’t want from the skies seeping from their apt. ceilings to the tainted water they need to drink, cook and bathe.

It ceases to amaze the outright stupidity and arrogance that continues unabated regarding NYCHA management, especially from the top. And especially in this maniacal age of real estate speculation. For even the technocrats at NYCHA want a seat at the table of the Gentrification Industrial Complex. Mr. Flores thoroughly reported last year how certain NYCHA buildings got repairs before contracts were awarded to a consortium of private developers and their shell organizations. Which adds tons of credence to the author’s theory that the gradual destruction of public housing and the displacement and disenfranchisement of poor people is definitely intentional. Which is immensely helped by the transparent duplicity of Mayor De Faustio and his continued boot licking to the real estate pogrom.

As for NYCHA, it may be the biggest scumlord of all. Each year there is the list for the 100 worst landlords, which for some reason, the same people are on the fucking chart year after year instead of being banished from owning and running buildings or serving a prison sentence. But NYCHA is a government service. It’s a service that should be taken for granted like social security or universal health care if it existed. It should be treated with the same reverence and care as a military base and even more than any embassy house. And it continues to betray the citizenry as if management feels they aren’t worthy of dignity or security because of what they are deemed to be worth.

This is not a cynical rant, it is a veritable fact. And this maltreatment is going to continue for another decade going by these egregious and incompetent official acts.

Comptroller Stringer should give his endorsement to Bill De Faustio a extremely long second thought.

 

 

 

 

 

The Grenfell Tower In London: Gentrification’s 9/11

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britain-fire

Kensington And Chelsea, London, England, United Kingdom

The Grenfell Tower’s torching was absolutely and undoubtedly preventable. The tenants there have been complaining for years about it’s negligence, even with an excellent and thoroughly detailed community blog about the terrible building managers and the willful indifference of city and parliamentary officials.

This horrific disaster was brought forth not only by the cause of the fire, which allegedly was sparked by a malfunctioning refrigerator that had plastic coils, but how it accelerated so fast in the first place. It was caused by the “cladding” encompassing the entirety of the building, supposedly to be used as protection from rain but the popular opinion is that it was used more for decorative purposes to gussy up the area to mesh with recent looming luxury tower development and recently installed fancy public spaces. This cladding is actually banned to use here in America, yet paradoxically this nation has industries that make it and sell it for import where there is little to no regulation, the same with the crappy plastic coiled fridge that ignited the fire.

It’s also more for the actions from those responsible for it’s upkeep and the deeply hidden but naked contempt for it’s residents, made up of working class poor people, recent Syrian refugees and those of modest means.

The NYC DOB and the 100 worst landlords have nothing on the Tories. For it was their rigid ideological conservative thinking that led to the homelessness and deaths of the residents of that building from the majority ruling shutting down of the Labour Party bill to provide safety measures that was actually called the “Homes Fit For Human Habitation”, for the reason described as the culture of safety. And for good measure, the majority of those upper class twit MP’s happen to own and rent properties for habitation themselves.

And it the borough council’s hoarding of 274 million pounds meant for the building’s upkeep and safety, the latter which was legally blown off by officials and exacerbated by gruesome government cutting, seems inspired from the grotesque money managing of NYCHA. Since Grenfell did not even have a sprinkler system installed in the building and apparently was bereft of fire extinguishers. The insane thing is that the RBKC and the KCTMO board had decided that cosmetic improvements were more important than emergency preparedness, as the cladding cost 11 million pounds to install.

The victims of what is being called corporate manslaughter were told to stay in their apts. by phone operators during the inferno. Reportedly most of the advisory signs in the building also suggested that tenants remain inside too if that isn’t too ironically warped. For hours the building blazed people remained inside because of this advice leaving them trapped. To this date, 79 people perished and died and there are still some missing. A mural of photographs of family members and neighbors cover a fence by the charred remains.

Apparently, as is going on here in the boroughs of NYC and all over the nation’s biggest cities (even Nashville) there has been a rush of influx tower hyper-development and ambitious and haughty city planning promoting luxury living and dining, and brand vibrancy nearby the struggling project complexes. The Gentrification Industrial Complex influence and manipulation of cities apparently has no limitations. Although in Britain, it’s called “regeneration”.

And as it is in NYC and other metropolises, London also is experiencing a dwindling middle class and a widening economic gap between the rich and poor.

Days after the inferno and the horrendous protective photo ops and embarrassing video of P.M. Theresa May fleeing a church from the yelling hordes and press photographers, there was actually a report on CBS News at 11 that focused on Grenfell and the pestilence of tower development on the coasts of Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn (and soon the Bronx) that wondered if it could happen here also. In the 2 minute segment fragment, they interviewed a DOB official who looked like he shit himself when he claimed that there is nothing much to worry about, which may have some truth because these new behemoths packed by the rivers don’t have the cheap cladding that ignites easily. The fire inspector they skyped with basically gave the same advice as those useless posters in Grenwell’s stairwell.

Since the devastation and destruction of the community of Grenfell, proactive though arbitrary measures were taken that led to the entire evacuation of another public housing building with the same cheap cladding and the transfer of the surviving tenants into a hotel for temporary shelter, a Holiday Inn Express (this chain does great business with the destitute even in London). Unfortunately, they all got kicked out of the hotel after a few weeks on short notice because of prior reservations and of course lack of warning and funding by the horrendous and primeval management group that destroyed their homes and livelihoods.

Not only is this Gentrification’s 911, but it’s neoliberalism’s WTC cleanup site or Iraqi Freedom, since it’s now producing collateral damage and existential dread among the displaced and disenfranchised from the massive tragedy. And like those analogies, the ones truly responsible, the elected and the appointed officials will not face any consequences or express genuine remorse, for this is how the preternatural way of progress works when it comes to shaping societies and economies in the new century. It comes to the point were Some Lives Don’t Matter when it comes to the lower and middle classes because their incomes don’t speak loud enough to be heard or to even give a fuck about, even if the people have a meticulously detailed blog about the rancid incompetence and vile indifference of the former Grenfell management group.

 

 

Wrath Of The Scumlords: Pine Management’s Imbecilic Effort To Force Senior Citizens To Use Fire Escape For Egress And A Volatile Super Installs Pointy Spikes On A Entrance Path Ledge Seating

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At a building on 165 West 83rd st., a walk up apartment building undergoing renovation attempted to force their tenants, the majority of them rent-stabilized and senior citizens, to use a fire escape for a week as they finish replacing the stairs.

The developer and owner, Pine Management, has quite a record of tormenting their tenants and is currently under investigation by the A.G. Eric Schniederman, stemming from an incident in December when Pine attempted to evict a 94 year old man from his apartment so they can convert it into two market rate apartments. The notorious company has a terrible rating in tenant review poll websites.

So it’s no surprise at all that they would try something as morally bankrupt as this. One would assume that a developer with hundreds of properties in the richest borough would at least arrange to have them stay at hotels while still collecting the legal rent as they finish repairs, but no, it’s easier to make peoples lives difficult. Especially the aged people, who mostly don’t have the stamina or even the training to achieve such athletic feats like jumping for that ladder to slide it down. And walking down that staircase with all that exposure from the grating of the ground below can be quite intimidating.

,Even though the DOB did react fast after this was exposed on the local news and streaming video, which is the only occasion they do, to put an immediate stop work order on the site, Pine Mgmt. apparently still feels secure that they can get away with such egregious and sadistic treatment of their tenants and denying their basic civil and human rights to even issue complaints without fear of reprisal.

What is not even addressed is the sheer stupidity of their zeal to discourage and disenfranchise their tenants. That if the only way to enter and exit is through fire escape, surely the ladder will be down for easy access most of time which will certainly encourage criminals to either burglarize their apts. or even rape the women there all hours of the day.

Despite the halting of the “renovation” and even ensuing litigation against Pine Mgmt., they seem to be secure in the fact that they will not see any punishment or strict punitive charges for their actions, which is why they can place sadistic orders like this like some kind of cartoon villain tethering his fingers.

Meanwhile, in Kew Gardens, Queens; A superintendent for an apartment building at 118th st. and 84th ave. under orders by the landlord, Perrone Calogero , to implement a nasty and menacing looking row of spike strips onto concrete ledges designed for seating on the path to the building’s entrance. These strips are commonly used by parking lots to discourage delinquent customers from skipping payment and punk rockers and death metal bands to make their attire look mean.

As per the usual process of creative renovations and modernizations of these properties, the spikes were placed there without notification and the input of the tenants of the building. Leading to inevitable and justified indignation about the unsightly dangerous new additions, and overwhelming concern of children frolicking up and down the path. In the video you can see a little girl about to place her hand on the ledge like out of habit.

Needless to say, as CBSNewYork tried to get some valid reasons from the super about the strips, they got muscled off as the thug attacked the cameraman with the grace of a club bouncer.

The reasons supplied by the management for this medieval ornamentation is discourage skateboarders and raccoons, but according to tenants there have been no such witnessing of these things. And in the age of uploading videos on myriad platforms, there certainly would have been footage of these alleged rogue trespassers.

As these diabolical attempts to stress out tenants of modest and poor status, Pine Mgmt. and Perrone obviously feel secure that they will not be punished or perhaps don’t care if they are.

And why not, there has been too much corruption in the past 3 years under Mayor De Faustio involving the Gentrification Industrial Complex’s developers and their goons and flunkies like that syphillic pussy that attacked the reporter, trying to force people out and bring in a new young sucker demographic to pay the fabricated market rates, that they will go to even more sadistic and demonic means to coax poorer people to move. This has become standard procedure and it’s actually encouraged by p.r. adviser groups.

And there are so so many of them, it’s a shock they actually got those lowlife Israel brothers and Steve Croman, the latter who only got busted because he tried to cheat the banks. Jared Kushner was doing the same shit for years in the East Village and was lucky enough that his poppop-in-law became predisent. The construction as harassment tactics employed by Kushner is the model clearly being used by Pine Mgmt. displayed above.

So these two property runners, despite government intervention and T.V. exposure, will probably continue their stupid demonic ways. For the rental market continues to rise, young people, national and foreign, are coming to New York in droves, which makes speculation easy to exploit and fabricate and the scumlords will find even more creative and destructive methods for their quest for personal monetary gains.

We’re going to need a bigger, better and badder enforcer to stop these property pimps.

 

 

Wrath Of The Scumlords: Slimy Disservice And Tactics At Seagirt 711, Displaced Elmhurst Residents Demand Independent Monitor

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https://i0.wp.com/ad009cdnb.archdaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/51ef160ae8e44e6da300008e_-finalists-announced-for-far-roc-competition-for-resilient-rockaways_8524850936_16663d04ff_h-528x396.jpg

The 711, Rockaway Beach.

On the gorgeous yet still gritty shores of Far Rockaway, there sits a beachfront apartment complex on 711 Seagirt Avenue called the Sandcastle, and it actually resembles one. Actually four, the color of the brick buildings matches the sand just feet away from the lots. But aesthetics is not what this is about. This is about another story about people, in this case elderly people, being undermined, mistreated, intimidated and expendable by the perpetrating owners and more indifference by elected higher-ups.

A report by the local paper “The Wave” focused on the “711”, a building marketed and designed for senior citizens, and the myriad problems consuming the building and the frustrations and complaints from the tenants. Insufficient and inefficient security conditions abound with broken intercoms and no guard personnel (the listing for the building states that it has a doorman and conceirge), leading to strangers roaming and suspected drug dealing in the halls and staiways all day and night, and homeless people settling in the concierge area. And of course there are pressing maintenance problems that get ignored.

The management of the complex, Sarasota Gold LLC, according to stressed-out residents has never made a concerted effort to show up for tenant meetings.

It’s a safe bet that the only effort the mysterious gentlemen (and maybe a few token women) of this LLC is to discourage the people from living there. And being that they are at an advanced age and vulnerable, it’s practically easy pickings. Now why does this seem quite nefarious, because these are the usual brass tactics of avaricious landlords when an area suddenly becomes “hot” or “cool” like Rockaway has become in the past 5 years. West of the 711 has seen a lot of development up the boardwalk with sleek new towers, a major upscale “hip” hotel, and actual luxury condo buildings on 116th street. But more essentially, a massive and still shocking and ludicrous expensive designer food and craft brew culture scene.

Basically, Sarasota is just conducting savage business as usual as was done in other areas consisting of working poor, retired and even middle class (there are just too many to name right now). And now it’s Rockaway’s turn, especially now that the boardwalk is complete and ferry service has returned. For the goal of the Gentrification Industrial Complex is to turn the entire 5 boroughs into a luxury theme park for the disposable income transients and transplants to our state. The G.I.C. turned Brooklyn into a brand and now it’s Queens’ turn.

So why not put a scare into old people and let the place rot from the inside and outside. Hell, NYCHA has been doing this for decades, sure the feds didn’t provide them enough funding, but the money they got from them and the city they found ways to piss it away. They don’t spend enough money anymore, well mostly because they can’t, and maybe because they won’t, being that they have to spend on other things, like medicine and food they can afford. They are unable to ride bikes like the target and favored demographic does.

https://images1.apartments.com/i2/n_C2tqKPAXXVCJU2QvIQWoT1Rjz1ijroRyk2ErZgw-Y/117/the-martinique-elmhurst-ny-martinique-plaza.jpg

The Martnique Plaza before some idiot blazed it.

Meanwhile in Elmhurst,  hundreds of people displaced when a fire engulfed their apartment building, the Martinique Plaza, ignited by an idiot contractor using a torch and propane which were forbidden for the work he was assigned to do, are demanding to appoint an independent monitor to determine the feasibility and the improvements of their homes.

The tenants were moved to hotels (thanks Mayor De Faustio, the only good aspect of your homeless policy) and later moved to shelters when they found the hotels environment to be unsafe and repressive (so much for that, these hotels aren’t even good for a night or two, what they are actually meant and exist for). Since then, they have organized and are very shrewd and quite cognizant of the methods and motives of landlords borough-wide and are very concerned of being disenfranchised from their dwellings. A good reason for their justified skepticism is that the buildings management offered them to move to new apartments if they don’t sue, a bigger reason is that they hired that imbecile who forced them on the streets, and the hugest reason is their superintendent initially lied about the schmuck on the roof until the NYFD came.

The good news is that the building management is being a bit more cooperative. Still, they tried to discourage them and that’s still scummy. It took some nifty assembling and good counseling by the tenants to put their balls on the coals. The folks at the 711 got a harder and higher dune to climb because of their presence on fabricated high end real estate and are relying on some guy running for public advocate.

Speaking of advocacy, where is Letitia ” Fatty Fat Fat” James? Or Councilman Donovan Richards, who was last seen crowing about the Mott St shopping center redevelopment,  or even their congressman Gregory “Squatter” Meeks? The 711 is practically under siege and people who spent their whole lives working, paying taxes so they can live near the nice beach are afraid to open their doors and go outside to enjoy it. And the owners and management are not only avoiding the building but letting the wolves run amuck. And these are elderly people for christsakes

This has been asked before and will be asked over and over. Does someone have to get killed first to get the services needed?

Wrath Of The Scumlords.

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NY Daily News: East Harlem landlord, her cohorts tried to drive sisters out of their home with threats of deportation: suit

Two sisters said they had to flee their East Harlem apartments after a landlord and her crew — including her Trump-supporting son — made life unbearable with increasingly ominous threats of harm and reports to immigration authorities.

But now they are fighting back to come home and stop the “relentless campaign of discrimination” being waged against them, according to their new Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.

Araceli Ramos, 32, and younger sister Rosa, 29, lived in their apartments at the 115th St. building for more than a decade. The problems started in January when the landlord, Diane Marrero Pedrez, told the women that they and the rest of the tenants would have to get out because “she intended to sell ‘her’ portion of the building.”

According to the suit filed Friday, the woman is the day-to-day manager and the executor of the estate that has a 50% interest in the building, which the suit says is worth $2.2 million.

That’s when the harassment started, the lawsuit says.

One time, Araceli was outside the building when Pedrez and a defendant, identified only as “Bob,” said Araceli had to leave.

Bob let it slip he knew where Araceli’s kids went to school. The same man allegedly referred to Araceli and her family as “immigrant pieces of s–t.”

Another time, Pedrez allegedly “lunged” at Rosa after another attempt to make her move out, the suit claims. According to the suit, the unnamed son yelled he was happy he’d voted for President Trump and he was tired of “all of these immigrants.” The son said he was going to be sure someone “rounded up” the sisters and the rest of the family.

The lawsuit said things got even darker. Two days after Telemundo showed up, Dicks came back with demands the plaintiffs and their families leave. “This is an old building and the boiler isn’t working very well. It could catch fire anytime, and no one would know if it was on purpose or not,” the lawsuit quoted him as saying.

The suit said Rosa and Araceli “were terrified that remaining in the building would result in immigration consequences for, or grave physical harm to, them and their family.”

This may be an actual confirmation of using the culturally volatile environment set by the policies of Figurehead Trump and the unscrupulous abuse of the real estate market speculation/fabrication and sadistic chicanery slumlord tactics that’s been enabled by the campaign fund whoring by Mayor De Faustio.

What is truly confounding is that here we have 2 young women who are actually part of the millenial demographic that these slumlords are trying to replace them with. Maybe these long time citizens of East Harlem are not the types who frequent designer pizza joints and craft beer gardens or wait on lines around the corner for a disgusting rainbow bagel. And are not stupid to pay $3500 a month to live in modest apartment in Manhattan. But it’s certain that they live there because they need to, they want to, and despite the amount of money they earn for a living they have every goddamn right to.

And how the fuck is that building worth 2.2 million dollars? It doesn’t even have bland and shitty street art on the side of it. This supposed real estate market is going batshit crazy. I wonder if the rise of those hideous behemoth monoliths on 57st in midtown is having an effect on the worth of regular apartment buildings.

Meanwhile in Queens:

Queens Chronicle: Elderly Kew Gardens tenants fight eviction

A pair of elderly Kew Gardens residents who survived World War II in their native Ukraine are facing possible eviction, as the owner of the co-operative building they live in wants to charge more in rent, according to the Legal Aid Society.

Sateesh Nori, the attorney in charge of the Legal Aid Society’s Queens office, says the two people — an 89-year-old great-grandmother Nellya and a 93-year-old Ukrainian Air Force veteran named Soloman — pay rent because they’ve been there since before the building was co-oped.

Because they pay less than $1,500 in rent with the help of Section 8 vouchers in a neighborhood where rents approach or exceed $2,000, Nori said, the landlord, Forest & Gardens Owners, started the eviction process more than two years ago.

But the housing cases stalled while Nellya and Soloman, whose last names were asked to be withheld, had guardians to handle their legal defense, finances and other aspects of life appointed to them.

Soloman has significant health problems that hampers his ability to represent himself in court, Nori said, while Nellya has been bedridden for about two years.

“Now that the eviction case is no longer on hold, their guardians contacted us saying, ‘we need your help,’” Nori said. “We’ve since looked back into the original court case and found numerous errors in the landlord’s legal argument.”

Nori added that Forest & Gardens Owners has failed to submit a lease renewal for the elderly residents, endangering their Section 8 vouchers.

“They’re aware, though,” he added of the residents, who don’t speak English. “What they’ve said to us through their translator is, ‘Why do you want us to leave? What have we done wrong?’”

Nori said the Legal Aid Society had no reason to believe the landlord has preyed on residents before, as the group has “never heard of them.”

Forest & Gardens Owners could not immediately be reached for comment by press time.

The Legal Aid group needs to be a little more cynical and aggressive, especially since Forest & Gardens (what a pretty, unthreatening name) couldn’t be “reached for comment”. As if persistently demanding two elderly people to move for 2 years doesn’t construe harassment. They got their rent on time, so what’s the problem. It’s not enough. And there is a demo market out there for this generation that is stupid enough to pay a grand or twice the amount to rent. Especially once an area gets deemed hip by the New York Times or any hack adverjournotainment website (say, Bedford and Bowery or DNAinfo and Gothamist, well for the latter two both now).

Though F & G owners are not letting the building rot from the inside or doing environmentally hazardous gut renovations or denying basic utility services. These are still, as with the East Harlem case, slumlord tactics. But maybe it’s time for a new malignant term for these scourges that ruining the fabric and soul of the 5 boroughs. Let’s call these awful people, scumlords. Because the behavior exhibited by these kinds resembles the traits of the scumbag, and since the Gentrification Industrial Complex of government, real estate (REBNY), private equity and the news media considers every crack on the sidewalk and streets hot property that definitively, there are no slums anymore.

These are precarious, trying times for tenants living in the most unaffordable city with the biggest homeless population in the nation. These 4 citizens are the lucky ones to get media attention and help from their communities. There needs to be more, possibly a lobby or real non-profit interest group for the poor and middle class to stop the scumlord scourge, for it’s obvious our overpaid city council don’t have the guts, will or stamina to aid their constituencies. For now, renters just have to use their own wits and know their rights. And not let the corrupt and the stupid disenfranchise them.