“My landlord wants me out by March 5” were the chilling words in Carol Yost’s e-mail after decades in a $500 a month rent controlled West Village apartment, and she added plaintively “I have no place to go.”
This spring the city and state will review rent-regulations—probably tightening them to protect the more than one-million rent regulated apartments in New York and address the growing separation between the global billionaires who buy enormous apartments as investments and the increasing number who cannot make their rent even in Public Housing.
A city study reveals that the median rent for a market rate apartment in 2014 was $1,500, followed by $1,200 for a rent stabilized apartment, $ 900 for a rent controlled apartment, and lastly $583 for public housing.
As might be expected, aging rent control and rent stabilized tenants had no income increase over the last three years, while market rate rents went up 7.7 %. As the rent regulated tenants get older, they leave the job market and live on social security and pensions—yet 56 percent of renters pay one third of their income for rent and utilities, leaving little for food on a $1000 a month social security check.
With exploding land prices, real estate developers do not build apartments for people on social security or welfare programs, so it becomes the job of government to build for those who earn little or nothing. This is implicit in de Blasio’s 160,000 units in ten years promise.
Hi, All.
After a series of deliberate deceptions and the reruns of old issues that had long since been resolved, my landlord’s lawyer is telling me I have to get out by March 5th.
First, to be brief, I was contacted by the landlord to make an appointment to check my radiator to be sure it wasn’t blocked. I was told all tenants were getting the same request. I had to cancel the original appointment I’d made due to illness. I called the landlord’s office, and said I had just been diagnosed with pneumonia (true); I was told to take my time and call for an appointment when I was up to it. Now, while I am much better but still needing rest, I get a letter from the lawyer saying I had “refused access” to my apartment for an inspection. The letter mentioned things that had been resolved years before—the number of books in my apartment—after I’d sent 17 boxes of books to storage (in 2008) and, later, had given a lot to charity and recycling. Now I’m told I’m damaging the building and creating a nuisance. This without a new inspection taking place. This was all out of the blue and contrary to what the landlord’s office had told me was the purpose of the appointment I was to make.
I have called the lawyer and made an appointment for Wednesday morning at 11:00 for an inspection of my apartment by an employee of the landlord. I have told the lawyer I had never refused access but had been sick. He assured me that if everything was fine as I’d said, “the landlord will be very happy” and supposedly all will be well.
Tomorrow I’ll call Legal Aid, possibly the Met Council on Housing, and do some picking up around my home; can’t do much. I am trying to keep calm for the sake of my health.
I pay a low rent in a high-rent area; he’s tried things numerous times before but always backed down. Why does he even bother? He’s saying he will terminate my tenancy March 5th. Believe that? I have nowhere to go. I will persist and, if the inspection doesn’t go well for some reason, I’ll fight. I’ve survived worse run-ins with this landlord. He’s always given up rather easily, apparently because he doesn’t want to go to too much trouble. Boy, does he like to saber-rattle, though!
Any advice or encouragement people have would be welcome. Sorry to bother you with this; I know others have had similar problems. It’s an adventure, that’s for sure.
Carol Yost
