By Rachael Johnson
The signs taped to the inside windows of a first floor
apartment building may be homemade, but passersby can’t help but take notice.
“Buyer Beware”, “We Are Organized” and “We Know our Rights” are not just idle
action words. Several residents of 1265 College Avenue in the Bronx are in the
third month of an ongoing litigation against College Management, a private
company cited as New York City’s number one worst landlord.
“That’s the
tenant’s association,” said Angel Caballero Rodriguez, a resident of the
building, referring to the maker of the signs.
“To let them (potential buyers of the
building) know that we have issues here,” and that the tenants
were not pushovers. Rodriguez formed the
association and was one of several who joined an action to bring a 7A claim –an
administrative removal of the current landlord -- against College Management. In essence, petitioners have asked the
court to appoint an administrator to run the building in place of the owner.
“It’s the last resort,” said Ian Davie, attorney for Rodriguez and the other
tenants, “once you notify the landlord, and call the city.”
Rodriguez, who lives in building 1265, apartment 2A, has
lived there for more than 50 years and said that getting the landlord, Eli
Abbot, to complete repairs was an ongoing struggle. “We have repairs and he
refuses to do them. Now that we’ve sued, he’s making it look like he’s doing
all this work,” he said. Rodriguez pointed out that recently contractors had
come in to paint parts of the building. “I’ve been doing all my repairs,”
Rodriguez said as he walked up the stairs. The landlord is supposed to do the
major fixes, the plumbing or electrical work, he said. Instead, Rodriguez, who
had holes in his walls, a vermin problem, and needed repairs to his kitchen,
said that he has done minor fixes, like sheet rocking, plastering and painting.
“You wait for the people to come do the work, but sometimes they aren’t
experienced enough, so I do it myself,” he said.
Rodriguez said that 1265 was once a nice place to live,
but today, with poor or no repair work being done, a landlord who appears
indifferent, the building in foreclosure, tenants in litigation, a building
that’s for sale and in the middle of negotiations to be sold for the third time
in just a few years, it’s certainly not what it used to be. “It’s an old
building and if you don’t keep it up, it gets worse,” said resident Danielle
Cipriano.
Abbot’s company, College Management, had a combined 724
violations for three of its buildings, according to the NY office of the public
advocate. Tenants in each of the three attached buildings-- 1259, 1265, and
1269 College Avenue -- have reported Class A, B or C violations. Building 1265,
where Rodriguez lives, has 232 violations, 26 of them are Class C violations.
Class C violations, described by Wiley Norvell, a spokesman for the office of
the public advocate, are “anything immediately hazardous. Urgent, needing to
get people out of the building; an exit problem, if the building has no hot
water, lead paint, especially if there are children.”
“Kids are constantly running. They could get hurt,”
Rodriguez said about the worn metal material peeling off the window seals on each floor. “You’re not
safe going up and down the stairs,”he said, pointing to visible cracks on the
stairs of the walkup building. “It’s not livable.”
In courtroom 560 last Thursday, Abbot sat quietly at the
defendant’s table making his first appearance since the trial began in June. He
was listening to testimony from his
contractor Robert Riviera about the painting he had completed in the building.
Every so often, Abbot would put his hand on his head and rub his brow.
According to the Housing Preservation and Development office (HPD), Abbott is
listed as the head officer of College Management, but College Management is not
included as a party on the foreclosure complaint.
College Management is listed as the buildings’ owner on
the Department of Buildings’ sign that hangs above the tenants’ mailboxes in
1265. Rodriguez’s name, along with 36 additional tenants --including 10 “John
Does”-- are listed on the foreclosure complaint. Davie confirmed that the
property was being foreclosed on, but there are several other oddities about
the case. “There’s a different name on the deed to the building,” Davie
said. “It’s not really clear [what’s
happening].”
It was a little after 5p.m. and Danielle Cipriano was
just home from work.” We have every kind of rodent, every kind of problem,” she
said standing in the first floor hallway. Mice and roaches have found their way
into 4A, Cipriano’s apartment. Vermin are classified by HPD as a Class B
violation, posing a threat to one’s health, but not an immediate threat.
According to a building registration summary report compiled by the HPD, she
has reported nine violations in her apartment. Six of those are Class B
violations.
“The buildings are old and not kept up properly,” said
Cipriano, who has lived at1265 College Ave for seven years. Cipriano has dealt with several problems, she’s had water
leaking in her bathroom since 2006 and said that a contractor was just sent to
do the repairs. “It’s constant, they just replaced my pipe,” she said, leaning
against a wall that she didn’t notice had fresh paint on it. “Ugh,” she sighed
while looking over her shoulder at the marigold-colored on her suit jacket. “I
smelled it. I just didn’t know where it was.” There was no sign to warn
residents that the walls were still wet.
According to the building registration summary report,
Cipriano also reported a Class C violation in January of this year, under
Section 27-2005, 2007 of the housing code, which describes “the
illegal fastening of a lockable slide bolt installed onto the exterior of door
(egress room).” It
appeared as though Abbott had illegally barred her from entering her own
apartment. “The landlord tends to harass them,” said Ian Davie, the tenant’s
attorney. “He’ll walk through the building on Sunday morning, banging on doors
to collect rent. He’s been doing that for years.”
Davie will litigate two more cases against Mr. Abbot.
Dominga Sanchez, also Davie’s client, is one of several others who live at 1259 College Avenue (adjacent to building
1265) and who joined a separate suit.
In apartment 1B, Sanchez slides her foamy leather couch
back from the wall exposing the sinking, warped and peeling flooring. She
points to a part of the ripped flooring while finishing up a phone call and
then walks into the kitchen. When she hangs up, she explains through a Spanish
language translator that three months ago,
pieces of the kitchen ceiling started to break off and fall to the floor. Then she motions to the bottom of her fridge which
has collected brown stains from rust and decay. She said she’s been waiting,
ever since the day she moved in -- a year and eight months -- for a new fridge.
“Repair it and let us live as human beings,” she said in
Spanish as Rodriguez translated. “No one should live like this, not even
animals.”
Susanna Blankley, director of housing organizing at the Community Action for Safe Apartments (CASA) worked with the tenants of 1265 so they would be in a stronger position to assert their collective rights for fairer housing conditions. Blankley declined to give details about specific issues tenants had with Abbott and the building during a phone interview, due to the sensitivity of the buildings’ current business negotiations, but did confirm that the building had been up for sale, and that they are currently negotiating for a new owner to purchase buildings 1259, 1265 and 1269.
"Whoever gets the building, there are people here who
have had longevity, and I hope the changes are better off for everybody,”
Rodriguez said. Davie said that their
main focus was to help the tenants. “We have no problem with the building being
sold, so long as it’s sold to a responsible purchaser who won’t put the tenants
through the same problems they’ve experienced for so long.”
*This story was written but not published for the web in November 2012.
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