38 YRS. IN THE DORM

College wants him out

A 67-year-old man has been crashing in a Hunter College dorm room — among comely coeds — for nearly four decades, according to a new lawsuit filed by the university.

Derek DeFreitas (inset) has a permanent residence in upstate Orange County, yet he has “maintained a dormitory room ‘crash pad’ at the Brookdale Residence Hall on East 25th Street and First Avenue” since 1980, a lawyer for Hunter says in the suit seeking to boot him.

The 14-story brick building was once a part of the Bellevue School of Nursing, but Hunter — part of the City University of New York — now controls the property.

“DeFreitas refuses to leave his dormitory originally provided to him and others under a long-discontinued program dating to the 1960s that reserved a certain number of rooms for active Bellevue nurses,” the suit says.

DeFreitas has called Room 6104 a second home since he started working at Bellevue. He paid just $50 a month when he first moved into the 100-square-foot space. Now his rent is $694.

When Hunter sent DeFreitas, who is also an attorney, an eviction notice in August, he claimed to have a “contractual right to stay in his dorm room indefinitely.”

He refused “to make way for students enrolled at Hunter College who are awaiting housing, thus depriving them of muchneeded space,” the suit says.

Meanwhile, male and female undergraduates “are forced to share common areas and bathroom facilities with DeFreitas,” the suit says.

And he has also encouraged other nurses to keep living there.

But one of his colleagues, Clayton Barone, 61, says dorm life is lonely for a sexagenarian.

“One nurse had to leave and move to The Bronx. She was my best friend, I was really sad,” Barone said, adding that he says hello to the students but they mostly keep to themselves.

Hunter, which claims the right to terminate DeFreitas’ month-to-month occupancy with 30 days’ notice, has been able to clear out 21 of 30 nurses.

College officials are asking a judge to issue an order directing a city sheriff to “eject DeFreitas from the dorm room.”

But DeFreitas claims he moved out within the last few weeks, and retired from his job. “Hunter made me feel terrible when I had to leave. I wouldn’t have retired if I could have stayed,” DeFreitas said.

He said he kept his pied-à-terre because his commute home could take up to three hours.

Hunter College’s attorney, Eric D. Sherman, declined to comment.