Tenants at One of the City’s Worst Buildings Take Their Landlord to Court

September 8, 2015, BROOKLYN, NY—Tenants at 410 East 17th Street in Ditmas Park have today taken their landlord to court after having been forced to endure abominable living conditions for years. The tenants are members of the Flatbush Tenant Coalition, a group of more than fifty tenant associations that fights to stop harassment and displacement in central and south Brooklyn, and are represented by Legal Services NYC’s Brooklyn program and by King & Spalding, LLP, which is handling the case pro bono.

 Press coverage: Gothamist, The Brooklyn Paper, Ditmas Park Corner

Low-to-moderate income, long term tenants of color in this rent-stabilized building (including at least nine children under the age of six) have suffered from a lack of heat and hot water, fire hazards caused by faulty electrical wiring, smoke detectors hanging loose by wires, infestations of vermin and pests, unlit stairways, widespread mold, lead-based paint, missing window guards in apartments with small children, windows that do not open (preventing access to a fire escape), rotting floors, and much more.

The conditions were so widespread and distressing that the building was placed in the City’s Alternative Enforcement Program (“AEP”) at the beginning of 2015, a status reserved for only the 250 worst buildings across the City.

After a Brooklyn Housing Court Judge ordered landlord Sholom Rubashkin to correct the 166 open housing code violations in March 2015, he did shoddy repairs in a selective manner, entirely failing to deal with the underlying conditions. Despite being taken out of the program in June, as of today the building has 207 violations, including 136 hazardous and 29 immediately hazardous.

“I am here to denounce the terrible conditions the owner of the building, Mr. Sholom Rubashkin, has forced us to live with,” said Lucia Muniz, who lives in the building with her five children, including a 16-month-old baby. “I personally suffered the consequences four years ago when high levels of lead were detected in my 6-year-old daughter’s blood. I have been without electricity many times overnight and on occasions, my daughter who has asthma has not been able to use her electric nebulizer. Many times the sockets have exploded and I am scared that one day there will be a fire inside like there has been in other buildings.”

“I feel like I’m being preyed upon to be disposed of,” said Susanne Saldarriaga, who has lived in the building with her husband for 32 years. “We’ve had no hot water for years and very little heat in the winter. He neglects the plumbing so badly that we have constant water leaks. One night I found a waterfall of dirty, smelly, rusty water coming down from the ceiling through the electric light fixture all over my bathroom. I had to throw out curtains, towels; it destroyed everything. All this because the lady upstairs was telling the landlord for months that it was broken and he ignored her.”

“This story is a cautionary tale of what happens when landlords are allowed to simply slap a coat of paint over problems,” said Rachel Bash, Legal Services NYC Staff Attorney. “Today we filed a case in Brooklyn Housing Court because the landlord has been put on notice about the severe hazardous conditions in the building time and time again and he has refused to address them. We call on HPD and the City to step up and force Sholom Rubashkin to make quality repairs so that the tenants and their children at 410 East 17th Street can live in the safe housing they deserve.”

Nesly Paul is a tenant leader in the Flatbush Tenant Coalition who faced similar issues in his own building. “The Flatbush Tenant Coalition supported us to defend our cases and helped us organize our tenant association to stop the harassment,” he said. “I am here as an example of our organization to fight what’s happening and not to surrender to the landlord’s harassment. If we get together and get organized we don’t have to be afraid, we can fight against the landlords’ harassment as we were able to do it in our building.  I and other members of the Flatbush Tenant Coalition are here today to stand in solidarity with our neighbors in this fight.”

###

Contact: Kate Whalen, 646-442-3654, kwhalen (at) legalservicesnyc.org