'PIT' OF DESPAIR
Pooch Trapped in apt. after owner is booted
A Brooklyn landlord evicted a family and changed their locks — but left their beloved pit bull trapped inside the dark, lonely apartment for more than two days, the dog’s owner told The Post.
“She’s my child,” an emotional Kevin Tamayo, 26, said after winning a court order Thursday afternoon ordering the landlord to open the Crown Heights apartment.
Finally freed, an apparently ecstatic Tori, 2, was more interested in giving Arles nuzzles and doggie kisses than in the food he brought her.
Tori had been in her “crate,” or cage, with her water and toys, since Tuesday morning, when he, his mom and his 8-year-old sister left for the day — and city marshals changed the lock on the otherwise uninhabited apartment, leaving an eviction notice on the door that was still there Thursday.
“Look at her head — she has marks where she was trying to get her face out of the cage,” Tamayo said after the building superintendent opened the door and he brought Tori outside to finally relieve herself.
Tori had urinated in the cage, but had struggled to hold in her No. 2.
Outside, her waste showed she’d been so hungry, she’d eaten some of her chew toys.
“I’m devastated,” said Tamayo, who works at an Upper East Side doggie day care.
“The fact that she was left in these conditions and we weren’t allowed access to her, it’s f--ked up.”
Tamayo and his family were evicted after a rent dispute.
On Thursday, a Brooklyn Housing Court judge ordered that the family pay their arrears and that landlord Scott Rosenthal, 56, of Manhattan, give them access to their things — and Tori.
“My little sister is in love with her and puts dresses on her,” Tamayo said of Tori, who was rescued from an abusive home this year and remains too afraid of punishment to bark loudly.
Rosenthal, who owns properties in Brooklyn and Queens, did not return calls requesting comment.
“I understand that the matter was resolved in court today,” Rosenthal’s lawyer, Michael Sucher, told The Post, declining to comment further.
Tamayo said he’s considering a lawsuit against the landlord.