Renter 'scam' torment
No-pay roomie nightmare for UWS pair
An elderly Upper West Side couple claim they’re stuck with the “roommate from hell” — an abusive, entitled 30-something real-estate agent who’s using legal loopholes to avoid paying them a dime in rent the past year.
Eugene Sarver, 78, who uses a wheelchair and suffers from severe Parkinson’s disease, and his wife, Nina, 74, who has dementia, say they made the ill-fated decision two years ago to rent a room in their spacious West 97th Street apartment for $992 a month to Lawrence Lee, a licensed agent whose antics may cost him his gig with real-estate titan Douglas Elliman.
Eugene alleges Lee routinely eavesdrops on their conversations and has especially freaked his wife out with “poor hygiene habits” that attract rodents and other pests to the apartment.
“He’s a horrible tenant and a pathological liar!” Sarver thundered to The Post.
The couple says the experience has left them so stressed that they’ve been in and out of hospitals the past year for heart conditions and other ailments while trying to get Lee evicted — only to watch the savvy salesman drag out the process by repeatedly applying for state assistance and then appealing after being rejected.
It’s gotten so bad that the couple regularly stays 10 miles away at a Bronx nursing home while Lee has free rein over their rent-subsidized, $2,200-a-month, three-bedroom, two-bathroom bargain that includes plush office space.
Lee stopped paying his share of the rent and utilities in June 2021 — and now owes the couple $12,518 that they had to lay out, according to records provided by the Sarvers.
That same month, Eugene Sarver filed a police report alleging Lee violently yanked a cellphone out of the senior’s hands while he was in the process of interviewing “a potential tenant” to replace Lee, NYPD records show.
“He came into my office and grabbed the phone out of my hand very vigorously,” the retired global marketing whiz and political-science lecturer recalled. “My arm hurt for two weeks. And he said, ‘I will never move.’ ”
The senior, however, added that authorities told him they didn’t have enough evidence to pursue charges against Lee.
Manhattan Housing Court filings show the Sarvers are seeking to evict Lee, but the process has been held up because the alleged moocher has repeatedly applied for aid through the state’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program.
By law, he can’t be tossed out of the apartment if he has appeals pending, although records provided by the Sarvers show he’s been rejected multiple times and keeps re-applying.
Eugene said Lee’s application continues to be rejected in part because the couple won’t sign off on papers claiming he is entitled to aid. The senior said he and his wife won’t cooperate because Lee is “scamming the system” and they want no part of it.
During a visit to their apartment with the elderly couple Friday, a Post reporter spotted Lee moving a massive air conditioner into the space. When asked to comment, he dropped the air conditioner on the living room floor and ran for cover in his bedroom.
A Post reporter and photographer then had to move the appliance so that Eugene could get around the living room in his wheelchair. Lee later continued to decline to comment before fleeing down an eighth-floor stairwell.
Hours after The Post reported on the situation, a Douglas Elliman spokesman said Lee is no longer with the company and that it plans to offer to pay the Sarvers the money Lee owes them.