Emily Contreras is only a freshman, but she’s already figured out what she wants to study at NYU: photography and imaging.
On the other hand, the tile floor in the apartment where she was raised and still lives today needs a lot of figuring out.
Emily says the landlord has failed to repair the tile floor and a problem with the apartment’s window, too, for nearly a year now.
Her family and the other rent stabilized tenants living in the building have been paying their rents into an escrow account until the landlord makes the repairs they want.
In order to raise some awareness of the issues they’ve been dealing with Contreras, other tenants and advocates rallied outside the six-floor walkup on East 13th Street because now the landlord is trying to evict them.
The landlord has filed for bankruptcy and in order to sell the property he's seeking “to immediately reject the leases.”
State Attorney General Letitia James , the de Blasio Administration and the state are fighting the landlord in court.
They say this is the first time they know of that a landlord has tried to use bankruptcy to remove apartments from the rent stabilization system.
“This is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to flout rent regulations,” James said. “Eviction by bankruptcy will create a new low for bad landlords in the city. [It's] a practice that we will fight on every front.”
The attorney for the landlord told NY1 his client understands his responsibilities to provide decent, safe and livable conditions, but that tenants are withholding their rents because of “unreasonable demands.”
He claims that they want “full renovations of their apartments.”
“He’s saying we’re making ridiculous renovation demands, but really we’re just asking for replacement of floor tiles,” Contreras said.
Contreras lives with her mom, dad, sister and aunt in a three bedroom unit. They pay less than $1800 a month, far below market rate, but they don’t think they can afford to stay in the neighborhood if the rent goes up dramatically.
A hearing next week may tell them if they’ll have to look for a new place to live.