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This Woman Hangs Bananas From Ceiling to Shield Them From Rats

By Gwynne Hogan | April 5, 2016 11:43am
 Tenants are fighting to take control of their building, while also staving off eviction cases.
501-505 Grand Street
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WILLIAMSBURG — Amalia Martinez, who has lived in her Grand Street apartment for 27 years, hangs bananas from a small light fixture on her kitchen ceiling. It's the only place in her apartment where the rats won't devour them, she says.

She's not alone. Florida Moreno, 39, and her four young children have slept on the floor on blankets and sheets because any mattress she buys becomes a bedbug breeding ground that infests her apartment's walls.

"I want to live like a person, not like an animal, not like a piece of trash," said Moreno in Spanish at a recent tenant association meeting. "We deserve a good building manager."

Dozens of tenants at 501-505 Grand St., including many children, say they have been living under substandard conditions for years, and that current owner Maurice Sohayegh of 510 EMR LLC hasn't improved them since buying the property in 2012 for just under $2 million.

Residents are now asking a state judge to take the property away from Sohayegh and instead appoint an independent manager to take over as part of the 7a program, according to court documents and their lawyer.

Tenants have been withholding rent in an escrow account since 2014 to protest the shoddy conditions, they said.

If the judge determines that the residences have been "effectively abandoned" by the owner and finds the conditions to be “dangerous to life, health, or safety,” he can order a third party to take over.

Sohayegh and his lawyer couldn't be reached immediately for comment. But according to court papers, Sohayegh has argued that the tenants should be evicted because they have no leases and he wants them out.

Complicating the issue is that tenants argue that they should be covered by Housing Preservation and Development's rent stabilization laws, which would protect them from being evicted and provide tenant protections. Sohayegh claims rent stabilization rules don't apply to 501-505 Grand St. because there are three units per building, and HPD rules only apply to buildings with six or more units.

Adam Meyers, an attorney at Brooklyn Legal Services who is representing the tenants and recently did a sweep of the building with an architect, said the units share a fire escape, a tax lot, and some plumbing — arguably making them part of the same building. 

Carlos Perez, 36, a tenant for 14 years, said he tried to use his rent money as leverage to get an exterminator to the building long ago. 

Sohayegh convinced him that he'd send one if Perez forked over the cash.

"I was an imbecile and paid the rent. He disappeared and never came back," said Perez. "False promises."