So You Think Your Landlord Is Bad?

A Lower East Side landlord pleaded guilty Jan. 6 to charges that he plotted to murder two rent-controlled tenants in one of his buildings.

Alvin Weiss admitted hiring a man for $4,000 to give two tenants in a Clinton Street building fatal overdoses of heroin. Neither one was harmed. The would-be hitman, who Weiss had hired in 1996 to burglarize and torch a rent-controlled apartment in another Lower East Side building, turned him in to the police and testified for the prosecution.

Weiss also pleaded guilty to perjury, tax-evasion, and forgery charges in two separate cases. He is expected to receive a seven-to-14-year sentence. However, some tenants in the Clinton Street building told the Village Voice that Weiss wasn’t that bad a landlord; lax on maintenance, but willing to tolerate rent arrears and not rabid about gentrifying the building.