Landlord does the write thing
A fed up Staten Island landlord put the writing on the wall for a pair of tenants accused of peddling drugs from her home.
“Enough was enough,” said building owner Donna — who asked to be identified by her first name only, and who decided last week to take a DIY approach to dealing with the situation.
“Beware! Drug Dealers Downstairs!” warned a handmade sign, written in red ink and taped outside of her New Dorp building.
“I knew it was going on and they kept lying to my face,” said Donna. “This has been going on for two years and they wouldn’t stop.”
On Thursday, just days after she put up the sign, narcotics officers swooped in and busted the tenants, sisters Linda and Christine Genise, on drug charges, according to officials.
“When the police came, I thought it was someone coming to collect on someone they screwed over,” Donna said. “When I saw it was the police I was so relieved.”
Cops said they found heroin and oxycodone in the Genises’ apartment. The sisters, both 52, were being held at Rikers Island Saturday in lieu of $2,500 bail each.
Donna, whose sign was first reported by the Staten Island Advance, said the Genises were annoyed but undeterred.
“Oh, they were pissed,” she told The Post Saturday. “The sign was up, but they still dealt [drugs]. Nothing was stopping them.”
The sisters have rented the downstairs apartment from Donna for four years.
“Believe it or not, the first two years, they were amazing tenants,” she said. “Always paid their rent.”
But now, the apartment is trashed, with broken outlets, burn marks on the vanity and holes in the walls, according to Donna.
The landlord said she suspects they have been dealing drugs for about two years. She has been trying to evict them since January.
“I didn’t want any of this to happen,” Donna said, but she acted because the alleged activities put her family at risk.
“I have a 2-year-old kid with Down Syndrome; I had no choice but to take legal action,” she said.
There were 1,075 opioidrelated overdose deaths in the city last year, up from 753 such deaths in 2015. Staten Island has been especially hard hit by the crisis, with more than 100 overdose deaths last year, up from 69 in 2015, the Advance reported.