If you live at 530 Parkside

Free help, from people who do this every day

None of these cost anything. Several are staffed by tenant organisers and housing lawyers who have handled this exact building type a thousand times.

What the law already gives you

Your apartment has to be liveable, and you cannot sign that away

The warranty of habitability (NY Real Property Law § 235-b) is implied in every residential lease in New York State. It cannot be waived, and no lease clause overrides it. An infestation breaches it.

Pests are the owner’s job to eliminate, not to spray at

Local Law 55 of 2018 requires owners of buildings with three or more apartments to inspect for pests and mould annually and again whenever a tenant complains; to remediate using integrated pest management; and to seal the holes and gaps pests travel through. Asking the owner in writing for those annual inspection records is worth doing — the answer, either way, tells you something.

Retaliation is presumed, not something you have to prove

Under NY Real Property Law § 223-b, if an owner moves to evict you, refuses to renew your lease, or raises your rent within one year of your good-faith complaint to a government agency or your court action about repairs, the law presumes it is retaliation and puts the burden on the owner to show otherwise. Write down the date of every complaint you make. That date starts the clock in your favour.

You have the right to organise with your neighbours

NY Real Property Law § 230 gives tenants the right to form and join a tenants’ association and bars an owner from harassing, punishing or penalising anyone for it, or from withholding any right or benefit because of it.

If reporting it has not worked

Two routes go further than a complaint. Both are designed for tenants without lawyers, and neither requires one.

An HP Action

A case you bring in Housing Court asking a judge to order the owner to make repairs. Unlike a violation — which is a fact on a record — a court order carries a deadline the owner owes to a judge, and contempt if it is missed. The fee is nominal and can be waived. The Help Center in Room 404 at 141 Livingston Street exists to walk you through the forms.

Several tenants can file together. A joint action by several apartments in one building is materially stronger than one apartment alone, because it goes to whether the problem is a unit or the building.

A DHCR rent reduction, if you are rent-stabilised

If you are rent-stabilised and a service you are entitled to is not being provided, you can apply to DHCR for a rent reduction. It cuts your rent and freezes increases until the owner proves the condition is fixed. Of everything on this page, it is the one remedy that costs an owner money every month the problem continues.

Keep your own record

Whatever route you take, the evidence is the same and it is worth starting today:

• Photograph and film everything, dated. Wide shot first so the room is identifiable, then close-up. Your phone stamps the date automatically — don’t strip it.
• Keep every complaint number 311 gives you, with the date.
• Put requests to the owner or super in writing — text or email, not only in person — so there is a record of what you asked for and when.
• Keep the envelopes. Anything the City or the owner mails you, keep it, unopened envelope included. The postmark is evidence.
• Note every visit: who came, when, what they did, how long they stayed.