Isn’t it a given that, if you are a New York City apartment dweller who always pays your rent on time and uniformly fulfills all your other duties relevant to the contracted-for bargain reached with your landlord, you should be able to live in peace?
Multiple residents in one Brooklyn apartment complex have found that such is hardly the case. As noted in a recent media expose of goings on at several properties owned by landlord brothers, the tenants have been subjected to “a campaign of intimidation and sexual harassment” conducted by an employee who they say is acting on behalf of the landlords.
The apparent strategy: to so unnerve and dishearten them that they just walk away from their rent-regulated units.
The employee allegedly delivering major doses of harassment and profanity-laced tirades at tenants is the properties’ superintendent, who reportedly has accused renters of lying, berated them for making complaints to city officials and disparaged people of color.
Notably, that individual’s behavior is firmly on the radar of his employers. The brothers have received legal warning letters and been embroiled in multiple lawsuits concerning the cited properties.
And still they stand by the man who tenants say they openly fear, seeming either impervious to or simply dismissive of the many complaints that have been made over a matter of months.
In fact, one of the brothers flatly denies seeing any evidence that would lead him to question his super’s behavior, acknowledging only that the handyman is “rough around the edges.”
A number of complaining tenants are scheduled to appear in court.
