“Sunny UES studio, gut renovated, washer/dryer, dishwasher, hardwood floors”

Not what you would imagine as the setting for tenant rights abuses?  Me neither—until I moved in.

I expected that I would have some problems with my apartment, and like anyone living in New York, of course I have.  Some of these problems came with living in an old building.  But most of the problems would have been avoided if only the large management company that owns my building had cared as much about its tenants as it does about its bottom line.  The tenants of my building have suffered the consequences of the crushing power of the management company and more specifically the unbridled greed of the individuals who head the company. 

When I first encountered problems with my apartment I believed, perhaps naively, that once I informed my landlord, he would send someone to fix the problems.  What I faced instead were hours of tortuous conversations with layer upon layer of my landlord’s employees—his human shields, who were charged with the task of keeping the tenants at bay by any means necessary, including disinterest, lies, condescension, veiled threats, and even underhanded deals.

I was repeatedly told that my concerns were trivial, that no one else in the building had any problems, and that I needed to stop bothering them with my hysterics.  But when I talked to other tenants in the building, I discovered that they were also suffering from fundamental problems, like lack of hot water (and sometimes lack of any water), electrical power outages, lack of heat, infestation by mice, and flooding.  And of course, everyone was being fed the same line by the management company and being treated with the same disregard.   

At one point, all the tenants in my building were notified that the staircases were being removed and replaced over the course of several days and we would not have access to our apartments during that time.  But when we requested reimbursement for hotel accommodations, we were all denied.  Upon my insistence that this refusal was illegal, I was told that the management would reimburse me under one condition—that I promise not to tell anyone else in the building.  If they got a call from anyone else saying that they knew I was being reimbursed, the deal was off.   

On one rare occasion, I was actually allowed to speak to the landlord on the phone, but when I requested to set up a meeting to talk to him in person, he refused, stating flatly, “It’s not our policy to talk to tenants.”  Dumbfounded, I replied, “You mean, you have a policy against talking to your tenants?” “Yes,” he answered.  I was informed that it was simple—if I didn’t like the living conditions I could move out.  All I had to do was pay four months rent and I would be released from my lease.  But continuing to bother my landlord with my trivial complaints was not an option and if I persisted, the implicit threat was that they would drag their heels when handling any problems that might come up in the future, regardless of how serious they might be.   

After months of researching my options, I decided to abandon my attempts at working with the landlord and try a legal remedy for my grievances.  Even though I knew that I would probably not be reimbursed for any future problems once I did so, I reported building and health code violations to the appropriate city government agencies and I filed for rent overcharge.  Five months later, the landlords responded to my rent overcharge claim with a set of legal documents about a hundred pages long.   

I have a college degree, I have studied and written about human rights and civil rights, I have access to advice from experts in the field of housing law, and I even work for a law firm.  But I am powerless against this monolith.  I am powerless every time my electricity fizzles and flicks off, every time I turn on my water and it comes out brown, every time my radiator won’t turn on, every time another rodent finds its way into my apartment.

I am powerless because when I stand up for myself and ask for my rights to be respected, my landlord can simply not call me back.  I am powerless because when I seek a legal remedy, he can hire an attorney to draft a lengthy legal argument.  I am powerless because I can’t afford an attorney of my own.  I am powerless because I have neither the time nor the knowledge to adequately represent myself.  I am powerless because even legally, the cards are stacked against me. I am powerless because he knows I am powerless.   

And I have a college degree.  I work for a law firm. I have had the privilege to be able to think about my rights.  What about everyone else?  If I am powerless, what about the people who don’t speak the same language as their landlords?  What about the people who can’t read or write, much less spend hours on the internet researching their rights?  What about the people who fear for their children because they have lead paint on their walls or because they are infested with rats—but who are too afraid to speak up for fear of eviction, or worse, because they don’t even know how to speak up? 

These rights abuses are silent.  We do not often hear about landlords going to jail for exposing their tenants to dangerous conditions, for exploiting their tenants, or for taking their tenants’ money and not returning the services promised in return, which is effectively stealing.  We don’t hear about it because it rarely happens. 

The power dynamic between landlords and tenants is the underlying problem, but assuming that we cannot overhaul the workings of our capitalist system, we as tenants should at least have a legal remedy when we are abused.  Tenants do have rights that are encoded in housing law, but if we cannot stop our landlords from violating these rights—if the burden of standing up for our rights requires us to stand up as individuals against huge corporations—then we may as well not have rights.  Every day, individual tenants are steamrolled by corporate landlords.  We are screaming “Stop! This isn’t fair!” but all we hear in reply is “It’s not our policy to talk to tenants.”

By Lauren Kernan