Bronx Tenants Take Landlord to Housing Court Over Nearly 500 Violations

Tenants of a rent-stabilized Bronx apartment building have taken their landlord and its management company to housing court, demanding repairs for close to 500 violations that have piled up over several years.

The Legal Aid Society filed the suit in May on behalf of 41 residents of 1349 Stratford Ave., a 72-unit building. The defendants are the owner, Patbru Realty Co. LLC, and the building's manager, Concord Management.

According to the complaint, tenants have had no cooking gas since January. They also say they have dealt with frequent hot water outages, lead paint violations, recurring leaks, and mold and vermin infestations. The city's Housing Preservation and Development agency backs up the picture: its website lists 466 housing violations, 145 of them Class C, the category considered most serious. The agency has had active complaints on file dating to 2016.

Winifred Coulton, 75, has lived in the building for more than 40 years and says she has watched it decline. She turned to state Sen. Luis Sepulveda, who in turn asked the Legal Aid Society to take up the case. "When I moved in here, the building was like 60 or 55 years old," she told Gothamist. "And from that time on, no maintenance, no interior, no new cabinets, no new, nothing."

Coulton alleges that her bathroom ceiling collapsed in 2018. She also says steam from the boiler room beneath her apartment soaked into her wood floors, which swelled and warped until they looked like a skate park. "I had my own ramp," she said. When repairs are made, she described them as poor quality: "It's a mess because it's all spit and glue." Her apartment still has five open HPD violations.

The lawsuit contends that the landlord's neglect of the building amounts to harassment meant to push tenants out of their rent-stabilized apartments.

Russell Crane, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society, said the plaintiffs are long-term residents with a stake in the property. "These folks have a real investment in the building, they remember a time, well, when things were not like this and they're willing to fight about it," he said. "People who move every couple years aren't necessarily as invested in their building and in their community."

Legal Aid says the landlord began moving to restore gas only after the suit was filed, repiping the building line by line. Crane said the timing is no coincidence. "We certainly think that the pace at which they're going is as a result of the lawsuit being filed," he told Gothamist. He added that the landlord has not offered compensation to tenants who have now gone nearly six months without gas and the ability to cook properly at home.

The suit asks a housing court judge to order the landlord to correct the violations. Patbru Realty Co. LLC and Concord Management could not be reached for comment.