W'burg Tenants Put Landlord 'On Notice' For Years Of Harassment

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN — For Chris Sroka, perhaps nothing better describes how badly her apartment at 229 S Third St. was maintained than the time her cat literally fell through the floor and into the beauty parlor that runs below her.

The longtime tenant, who has lived there for 30 years, said things have started to go downhill ever since a new landlord bought the building in November 2014.

"That’s how bad the floors were — they were rotted out," Sroka said. "My apartment was falling apart around me."

Sroka was one of several tenants, from 229 S Third St. and another building the landlord owns at 563 Manhattan Ave., who shared their stories of alleged landlord harassment at a rally Tuesday.

She contends that when she tried to have the landlord fix the problems, he had her sign a vague document that ended up allowing him to jack up her rent by 93 percent in the name of capital improvements. The "half baked" improvements, she said, barely made the living conditions better, and left her without heat and water for two months.

"I had signed something that I didn’t think was any kind of commitment,” she said. “I never had any say in what he was doing he just did it. I don’t understand why someone should have to pay to have the basics — like floors that are stable."

Sroka is one of many residents in the building that has taken the landlord to housing court over the issues.

Other tenants told similar stories of the landlord trying to charge them to fix basic services, like water, air or a fire protection system. They also said the landlord has rejected their rent checks based on their source of income or destroyed their credit because of his rent policies.

Residents in both buildings said many of the issues seems to be discriminatory against minorities who live there, whether it be the majority Polish population in the Manhattan Avenue building, the Latin-American community on Third Street, or the LGBTQ community, like Sroka and her partner, who is transgender.

“We are putting him on notice that this is harassment," said Corina Lozada, a lawyer with Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation who represents some of the tenants. "These are two tenant associations with very different backgrounds, but who are facing very similar (experiences).”

Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation hosted the rally along with Southside United HDFC- Los Sures and North Brooklyn Development Corporation.

The groups, along with representatives from offices of elected officials, also used the rally to call for changes to rent laws. Some spoke specifically in favor of a broad package of bills now being considered in Albany, known as the Universal Rent Control Platform.

Activists have said that the platform would close loopholes landlords currently use to evict tenants or raise their rent unlawfully.

"Tenants have been taking it on the chin since 1992 when the city started giving their rights away," Sroka said. "It has swung so badly in favor of the landlord. We have to have law reform."

Building documents show that Mohsen Zandieh bought the Manhattan Avenue building in 2015 and a company by the name of 229 Street LLC, with the same address as Zandieh, bought the Third Street building in 2014. A message left with Zandieh's real estate office in Queens on Wednesday went unanswered.