Clara Mendoza is afraid that she will soon be evicted from her home on Manhattan Avenue, where she has lived for 42 years. He started out paying about $ 250 a month in rent. But in 2013, his building was bought by a new owner, who asked to raise the rent to $ 1,600.
“We have a lease since we moved here, from the year 78 and in the lease He says that by chance I have income stabilization, but he never renewed it because it was always the same, “explains the tenant.
This contract is from 1978 and says that it is income stabilized. When the case reached the court in the first instance, the judge considered this place as income stabilized; but, later, the owner of the property, Elizabeth Tapper, was agreed.
“And the previous owner never registered any of those apartments as rent stabilized. I have asked him to show me that contract and somehow they never showed me the contract,” Tapper details.
Before the pandemic, Clara says that she received an eviction order and now she fears that she and her 73-year-old husband will be left homeless because they only receive a pension: “What my husband and I receive does not give us to pay what she asks. We are waiting for God to enlighten us and do something to help us, “says the tenant.
In the building there are also three other relatives of Clara who are in the same situation. One of them is Vinicio Valera, who says that during the seven years of legal battles they have suffered harassment for lack of services such as lack of heating in winters and rat problems: “The department’s infrastructure is falling apart, mold”.
Tenants told us that the new landlady even offered each family $ 15,000 before taking them to court to leave their homes.
The owner denies having offered them money and says that the $ 677 dollars paid in total rent for three apartments is not enough to renovate the facilities and refused to answer whether she will continue with the eviction intentions.
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