BUSHWICK — A group of tenants who said they have put up with rat and bedbug infestations, mushrooms growing from leaky plumbing and no cooking gas for more than a year rallied Thursday to get rid of their absentee landlord.
Half a dozen tenants in 159 Suydam Street have taken building owner Damian Campasano to housing court in hope that a judge will agree to turn control of the property over to an independent management company.
The long-time landlord Frank Campasano, who has since transferred the deed to the building to his son Damian, subdivided many of the apartments into single rooms without windows and failed to maintain the building over the years, according to Department of Buildings records.
The father owes $93,000 in fines to the city for illegal conversions, construction violations and non-payment penalties.
But last January things went from bad to worse.
Workers cut off the gas and electricity in some parts of the building, ripped out toilets and sinks and began intimidating tenants to leave with buy outs, tenants said.
The elder Campasano was charged with bribing city inspectors to tell tenants they had to vacate the building within 72 hours, according to tenants and prosecutors. He pleaded guilty to official misconduct in August 2015 and was sentenced to 100 hours community service.
"He tricked them," said Pablo Cruz, 62, who's lived in the building for 15 years, referring to many of his neighbors who packed up and left.
For months, a handful of tenants refused to budge, though they only had electricity in certain parts of the building, no functional bathrooms or cooking gas.
"They left me without a bathroom, without lights, without gas," said Julio Corcueca, 55, who has lived in the building for 11 years and felt he had no choice but to endure the conditions.
Corcueca, who installs flooring for a living, said that each night he'd fill a bucket with water at a nearby laundromat and heat it up on a hotplate in a pot in order to take a bath.
"I've been here for so long and where was I going to go?" he said in Spanish.
They put got a bathroom back and electricity was restored.
But still most of the tenants don't have gas.
"With this little hot plate you know how long it takes to cook anything?" said Corcueca. And leaky pluming in the bathroom has lead to huge mushrooms growing from the walls.
"When you're sitting there [on the toilet], little drops of water fall on your back [from above]," he said.
"I don't think it's humane what they did," Corcueca said. "But I'm not going from here. I'll stay here until the end."
The tenants' lawyer Ariana Mamora, of MFY Legal Services, said Campasano's history of neglect and harassment make a strong case against the landlord.
"[A judge should] do right by the tenants and offer them what they deserve," she said. On Wednesday, the case was adjourned until April, she said.
An attorney representing Campasano in housing court didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
