Scaring my security deposit out of a slumlord
January 16, 2008 12:30 PM Subscribe

Shady-Brooklyn-Landlord Filter: I don't have time to take him to court, but what if the notarized letter isn't enough to scare him?

Last January two friends and I moved into one of those diseased, rotting apartments that blight the Brooklyn landscape. Our landlord was clearly incompetent, but the place was cheap and it was all my meager intern salary could afford. We paid in cash, since he can't accept checks, were on time with rent, made no unreasonable complaints, and were generally decent tenants.

Things deteriorated bit by bit between us over the year, mainly due the landlord's tardiness in addressing pressing matters (no hot water, no heat in October, refusing to put peepholes on the doors and locks on the mailboxes) and by the time we moved out we were barely on speaking terms. When I started calling for the security deposit a week after we moved, he leveed these claims against us.

1. He is retroactively charging me rent for the basement that he allegedly would rent out to tenants, though it turned into a de-facto storage space that no one in the apartment building paid for but everyone still used. I never signed anything agreeing to this arrangement (nor did I do so verbally), but he seems to think he can charge $1000 nevertheless.

2. My roommate had bedbugs, twice. He exterminated, twice, though each time tried to make us pay for it. My roommate, who was most severely afflicted, agreed verbally to pay for half as she didn't know her rights. He's now trying to charge her for the full price, angering her to the point of refusing to pay at all.

3. When said roommate moved out and another girl took her place, our landlord refused to "let" her move in, saying that she hadn't signed a lease and might insist on staying longer. However, he didn't evict the new roommate and accepted her money until our lease was up and we moved out.

4. We moved in Jan. 1st of 2007, paid rent on the first of each month (all in cash), and I notified the landlord that we would be out by the 1st of 2008. Our lease ended on the 31st of December. One roommate spent this last night at the apartment and was there in the morning to hand the landlord our keys. The landlord is now ludicrously claiming that he is owed an entire month's rent for this overstay.

5. Because the two other original tenants moved out and their subletters simply paid their security deposit to the departing roommates (at the landlord's behest), two people who are not on the lease are now owed security deposits. Our landlord refuses to deal with either of the subletters and insists only on speaking to the original three tenants, though I am the only one on the lease who stayed the entire year.The two original tenants have signed waivers that transferred their claims to the security deposits to the subletters, though this hasn't changed our landlord's behavior to the subletters at all

I know his claims are wrong and a judge will likely favor us in small claims. The thing is, I don't want to miss a day of work to go through this ordeal. In addition to having the survival tactics of any money-grubbing slumlord, this man is also irrational, childish, and hell bent on keeping our deposit. I have a feeling to due to the poor quality of the building and the fact that he rents exclusively to poor white kids fresh out of college who don't know their rights, he's not used to tenants aggressively demanding deposits and has now become irate. During calm phone calls where I attempt to settle matters civilly, he is reduced to a high-pitched treble and sometimes sounds like he's near tears.

This is just your run-of-the-mill Hasidic slumlord who isn't affiliated with a Real Estate corp or anything of the sort, so I can't attack his superiors. We've taken the first step of sending a notified letter listing our rights to money, with the final threat that he will meet us in small-claims to settle the matter. Are there other legally-intimidating measures I might take to let this dude know we mean business?

posted by zoomorphic to home & garden (17 comments total)