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Robert Durst's Wife Trying to Oust Us With Building Renovation, Tenants Say

By Gustavo Solis | October 15, 2015 7:53am
 Residents of 3147 and 3149 Broadway say their homes have been turned into a construction site by a new landlord.
Living in a Construction Site
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HARLEM — Tenants of a building owned by the estranged wife of Robert Durst say she is trying to drive them out by turning their homes into a construction site as she renovates vacant units and ignores basic repairs in rent-stabilized apartments. 

BCB Property Management bought six buildings — including 3147 and 3149 Broadway — for about $80 million last year. BCB is run by Debrah Lee Charatan, the estranged wife of suspected murderer and Manhattan real estate scion Robert Durst.

Charatan is still married to Durst — whose role in the murders of his ex-wife and two other people was the subject of an HBO documentary series — but their relationship has taken a "sharp turn in recent years," according to the New York Times.

Residents from the BCB buildings say the management company has turned their homes into active construction zones as they gut-renovate empty apartments and rent them out for more than twice what rent-stabilized tenants are paying.

Erasmo Guerrero, who has lived at 3149 Broadway since 1976, said the dust is so bad that unless he mops the floors every few hours he will start coughing and have a hard time breathing.

“Every day I try to fight against the dust,” he said. “It’s a full-time nightmare.”

Construction in apartments above his have created cracks in the ceiling and caused light fixtures to fall. His bathroom sink is starting to fall away from the wall.

Some fear that the dust levels are a health hazard. 

Tenant Robert Sabin said his air quality meter, which reads particles in the air in a 10 second span, has consistently gotten readings in the building of more than 3,000 — well over the "very poor" level.

“It’s gone up to 8,000,” he said. “The air quality here is dangerous.”

In addition, neither 3147 nor 3149 Broadway have had any cooking gas in more than a month.

The developer's lawyer defended the construction, saying there are worse buildings in New York City and conditions in 3147 and 3149 Broadway do not warrant a news story. The landlord is doing everything they can to improve conditions and make it a better place to live, he said.

"I know this landlord is a good landlord, one of the best, and they always do the right thing,” said Adam Leitman Bailey. 

“I’m sorry you are working on this and not a more interesting story, but I guess you don’t want to work on those.”

The tenants, some of whom owe rent, deliberately ripped down plastic guards that keep the dust from spreading, he added.

“Their goal is to make conditions so bad so that they don’t pay rent,” Leitman Bailey said.

Minutes after saying that on the phone, Leitman Bailey emailed DNAinfo saying all tenants have received a 10 percent rent abatement from the time the cooking gas was shut off.

Con Edison turned off the gas in September because of unauthorized piping work, a spokesman said. The developers submitted paperwork and Con Ed will likely need to inspect the building in order to get the gas back on. There is no date scheduled for that inspection.

Bailey said the unauthorized work was done by a commercial tenant, not the landlord. Their crew has been aggressively trying to get the gas back on, he added.

Still, residents cannot use their ovens.

“We haven’t had cooking gas since we moved in,” said Davis Surface, a former Marine and student at Columbia University. “After we complained they gave us a hot plate.”

Surface and his roommates paid the full $3,600 rent in September on their three-bedroom unit and had not heard of the 10 percent abatement Bailey mentioned on Wednesday.

Rent stabilized tenants pay about $1,000. Their units are not being renovated and don’t come with washers and dryers, they said.

“I’m angry because they have really hurt a lot of people by doing this," said rent-stabilized tenant Kimberly Cameron. "They are predators basically. Predators because all they want is money.”

In Crown Heights last year, tenants of a BCB-run building accused their landlord of doing similar things like ignoring basic repairs while gut renovating empty units in the same building, the Daily News reported.

Tenants of five of the six buildings, which have all reported similar living conditions, reached out to elected officials for help. The only Harlem representative to respond was City Councilman Mark Levine, they said. 

"No tenant's health should be put at risk because of construction in their building," the councilman said. "This is unacceptable. My office will continue to do our part to help those dealing with such inexplicable conditions."

Levine also put the tenants in touch with a local tenant advocacy group.

They are now working with Pa’Lante to get rent reductions over the lack of gas, pressure the city for more oversight, and possibly take the landlord to housing court over basic repairs.

“The owner of this building is trying to destabilize all these units,” said founder Elsia Vasquez. “She is really trying to get them out.”

While the tenant association organizes for a fight, some residents fear it might be too late. Once the renovations are done they will have gotten what they wanted.

Even if they do complain, Guerrero said he fears the concerns of the rent-stabilized tenants are easy to ignore. He filed a complaint with the state after the landlord ignored his requests for a lease renewal.

“It’s a lost cause because these guys have millions of dollars,” he said. “When they talk people listen. When we talk no one cares.”