Tenants With No Water, Heat Face Off Against Landlords In NYC Hearing

NEW YORK, NY — Lady Altovise, who has lived in the same apartment for over 20 years, said she slept in her coat when the heat cut out in her Harlem unit around Thanksgiving.

The radiators clanged back to life, then went cold again. One week on. One week off. At least one day, she said, the water stopped running entirely.

She boiled water on the stove for steam. She plugged in space heaters that drove her electric bill into the thousands. When the thermostat stopped working in the cold, she lost her way to document the temperature inside.

The first of the city’s rental ripoff hearings took place in Brooklyn on Thursday, where tenants and small property owners shared complaints about heat outages, water issues and rising costs.

Brooklyn tenants lined up to recount weeks without heat, mold spreading across ceilings and rent hikes they said outpaced repairs.

Representatives from agencies including the New York City Department of Buildings sat behind folding tables answering questions.

Large poster boards filled with handwritten complaints: “No hot water.” “$200 roommate fee.” “Heat off again.”

“The mayor's office to Protect Tenants is hosting these hearings to hear directly from you about how you're being price gouged in your home, all the ways that you're paying too much and getting too little in return, whether that's being charged junk fees or tolerating rent increases while the conditions in your home deteriorate,” Cea Weaver of the Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants said.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned on lowering living costs, freezing rent and cracking down on bad landlords. An executive order directs agencies to compile testimony from the hearings and propose policy changes within 90 days.

Altovise said she fell behind on rent after her income as a tour guide dropped. She paid double each month to catch up. The landlord discontinued an eviction case after she repaid the arrears, she said, but later charged about $2,750 in legal fees. Legal aid attorneys told her the landlord could sue for rent but could not automatically impose legal fees without a court judgment, she said. She nearly paid the fees anyway.

“I was sleeping in my parka,” Allia Mohamed, co-founder of Openigloo and housing expert, said, recalling similar conditions in a previous apartment. “We really went through this cycle over and over and over again, and there was never a heat violation that was issued to my building, despite all of us sleeping in parkas.”

She said renters frequently report three problems: heat and hot water, mold and rent increases.

Mohammad said the burden often falls on renters to document conditions and negotiate relief.

“You don't get what you don't ask for,” she said, suggesting tenants request temporary rent reductions during prolonged outages.

Sharon Redhorn, who owns a family-run building in East Flatbush, said her family has owned property in the borough since the 1970s, when they immigrated from the Caribbean.

She manages the building herself, knowing each tenant, handling repairs, collecting rent and tracking expenses.

Redhorn said rising property taxes, insurance premiums, and utility bills, combined with flat rents, have forced her to operate at a loss.

“You can’t run a building like this on good intentions alone,” Redhorn said. “Every dollar I spend on repairs, I’m losing somewhere else.”

Renovations could cost upwards of $50,000 per unit, she said.

A vacant rent-stabilized apartment remains unrenovated, she said, because current law prevents her from recouping the full cost of repairs.

“People think owners like me are villains, but we’re just trying to keep the building standing,” Redhorn said.

Natalia Bonanno, who helps run her family’s small portfolio of buildings, described a similar financial strain. Boilers, roofs, and façades fail regardless of policy timelines, she said, and securing financing for repairs under rent regulations is difficult.

When tenants cannot pay, months can pass in housing court before cases are resolved, during which expenses continue to pile up.

“It’s not about greed,” Bonanno said. “We want to reinvest in our properties, but the numbers don’t add up when you have broken boilers and roofs that can’t wait. Every month, we’re paying out more than we’re taking in.”

Ann Korchak, board president of the Small Property Owners of New York, called the hearings “City Hall-sponsored, anti-landlord events.”

“The Mayor doesn't want to hear the stories of hardship and struggle, and perseverance and resilience of thousands of generational, immigrant, multicultural small property owners who have poured everything they have into their buildings,” Korchak said.

Small owners say their ability to negotiate narrows as costs rise.

Inside the hearing room, renters wrote their stories in thick marker and pressed them onto poster boards. Outside, owners calculated their next bill.

Tenants said they want heat that works, water that runs and rents they can pay. Landlords said they want costs that stabilize and policies that allow them to maintain their buildings.

Both said the current math does not balance.

The second rental ripoff hearing is scheduled next week in Queens, and after all five boroughs are complete, the city will have 90 days to develop plans based on what it has learned.