Landlords Send Drunk Repairmen To Rat-Infested Homes, Tenants Say

PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS, BROOKLYN — Dozens of rent-stabilized tenants forced to live without electricity, working bathrooms and kitchens are suing landlords they say either ignored violations or sent workers too drunk to make repairs, court records show.

Tenant Associations from 288 and 295 Maple Street will unite in court on Tuesday to demand landlords — working as a limited liability company called BSF 288-295 Maple Holding — address the buildings' 184 housing violations which a Housing Court judge ordered them to repair in November, the tenants' attorney told Patch.

“Their goal is to get the long-term, rent-stabilized tenants out of these apartments,” said Legal Aid Society staff attorney Romy Ganschow. “One way landlords do that is to neglect them, maybe in the hopes that tenants will move out.”

In November, landlords Jacob Mann, Christopher Sciochetti and Lewis Barbanel — owners of the two buildings on Maple Street near Nostrand Avenue — were given until Dec. 29 to repair the most hazardous violations and until Feb. 23 to repair remaining violations, court records show.

More than three months have passed, but Mann and his colleagues have failed to address complaints of rats, cockroaches, rotting and splintering woodwork, chipping lead paint, front doors that won’t lock, toilets that don’t flush, broken radiators and mold, Ganschow said.

Conditions have also gotten worse. The two apartment buildings have since accrued more than 60 new housing violations, Housing Preservation and Development records show.

Which is why Legal Aid Society attorneys — working on behalf of 37 rent-stabilized tenants who are still waiting for repairs — are preparing to return to court Tuesday to demand the landlords pay about $20,000 in penalties to the city.

“Respondents’ work has been simultaneously delayed, sloppy, and inadequate,” their complaint claims.

“Workers routinely show up unannounced and demand access on short notice, are nonetheless unprepared to do the necessary work, and then do work that is of such poor quality that it frequently makes the problems worse.”

The complaint includes stories from several tenants who were unable to shower, were forced to miss work and clean up after repairmen who left their homes strewn with trash.

At 295 Maple Street, resident Therone Evans took two weeks of unpaid leave from work to wait for repairmen, who never came, to fix the leak, bathtub and shower in a bathroom he could not use.

His neighbor Claire Eubanks waited weeks for workers to restore hot water to her apartment. After the workers left, the electricity went out in her kitchen and living room. Eubanks missed work the next day to let in the landlords’ repairman, but he showed up at 4:30 p.m. stinking of alcohol and physically unable to work.

At 288 Maple Street, Margaret Gravesande discovered workers who were supposed to repair her kitchen simply tore out her cabinets and left, according to the complaint.

Workers in Yadira Williams’ apartment did a poor repair job then left her home covered in beer cans and trash.

“This sort of shoddy and inadequate work is typical of what the tenants as a whole have experienced,” Legal Aid Society attorneys wrote in their complaint. “Respondents have squandered the considerable amount of time they were given by Petitioners to make these repairs and now must be penalized accordingly.”

Ganschow hopes the landlords will be ordered to make repairs and provide compensation to tenants who missed work and still live in unsafe conditions, she said.

She also noted her organization, which provides free representation to those who might not otherwise be able to afford a lawyer, was better able to defend the tenants because they had formed an organized tenant association before connecting with the Legal Aid Society.

“These tenant associations are self-organized and that’s really exciting,” Ganschow said. “It means we’ve been able to help them.”

An attorney for the owners of 288 and 295 Maple Street was not immediately available to comment.

Patch editor Noah Manskar contributed to this report.

Photos courtesy of GoogleMaps/Nov. 2016