Tenants eye suits over rats, leaks
Brooklyn tenant Claudia Harris cowered inside her room, afraid to step into the darkness.
The 32-year-old mother of a 3-year-old boy said her residence at 676 Willoughby Ave. was invaded by a massive rodent and other vermin — and her landlord refused to handle the infestation.
“I had to adopt a cat, because I had a rat the size of a size-13 sneaker in my apartment,” she said. “It came to the point I would not come out of the bedroom when it was dark. I would barricade myself in my room — I was scared.”
Harris and fellow residents of 676 Willoughby Ave., (inset) along with tenants at 150 Tompkins Ave., are pursuing separate Brooklyn Housing Court suits over allege - ditions ignored by property managers in their buildings. Hearings in the cases are scheduled for Monday and Aug. 2, with both buildings overseen by the same affordable-housing nonprofit.
The targeted companies are Willoughby Tompkins LP and Aikens Apartments.
But Northeast Brooklyn Housing Development Corp. — which, according to its website, pushes for the “preservation, development and management of affordable housing” — is listed as the “managing agent” of the two Bushwick properties in city records.
Gabriel Pacheco and Jeffery Dunston, listed in city records and court papers as officers of these properties, are also being sued. Dunston is referred to as CEO and an officer of the housing corporation on the organization’s website. Northeast Brooklyn is not named as a defendant in tenants’ petitions.
The Legal Aid Society is representing the tenants of both buildings.
Eight residents of 676 Willoughby say the 21-unit building is also rife with leaks, including sewage, and provides poor garbage disposal and lax security. Seven tenants of 150 Willoughby make similar allegations about conditions in their 20-unit building.
According to Housing Preservation and Development, which monitors conditions in buildings with rent stabilized apartments, the Willoughby and Tompkins sites have 198 open violations and 99 open violations spectively. Harris realled that hen she rst moved with her ther on Willoughby ve. seven ears ago, onditions ere “fair”
but have nce deght . the cat when her son was born to deal with the rats inside her residence.
The rodents only relocated: Because the landlord fails to “upkeep with the garbage,” the rats now gather near the waste area, she said.
A persistent leak in the bathroom of her three-bedroom apartment, priced at $1,500 per month, “smells like old urine.” And there’s a hole in the ceiling that has long gone without repair, said Harris.
“I just feel like, when we put in for things to be repaired, we shouldn’t have to call 311,” she said. “Who wants to live like that?”
Attorney Seth Denenberg, who represents the properties, Pacheco, Dunston and developer Northeast Brooklyn, insisted his clients were “doing the very best job they possibly can under the circumstances.”