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Harassment from neighbors bully teenagers

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Harassment from neighbors bully teenagers

Postby JM-Tenant » Tue Oct 08, 2013 6:41 am

My neighbors bully teenagers have taken to banging as hard as they could on my bedroom wall throughout the day. So hard that the wall shakes, my mirrors and other pics have fallen. This has been happening since earlier this year, and has gotten worse. The more I complain to the landlord the worse it gets. It starts very early in the morning (when I get home from work), and sometimes continue til pass midnight or 2 or 3 in the morning.

Unfortunately I work the graveyard shift (10pm-7am), and this wall (which is my bedroom wall) is right across from the elevator bank.

These neighbors are stone crackheads. The mother has done several stents in prison. I tried complaining to them... they said they'd get it to stop but that hasn't happen. The kids ignore them. The landlord said she would speak to them and after two more incidents would send them some kind of legal letter. Thats also done nothing. It's a joke to them.

The banging has continued endlessly. I even wonder if the parents are helping. The worse times are obviously mornings but even worse are the weekends after a long hard week when I'm so tired, I can barely see.

Is there anything I can do??? I'm so desparate for any help or advice I can get... and unfortunately I can't afford to move right now.
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Postby TenantNet » Tue Oct 08, 2013 6:45 am

Are you rent stab?
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Postby JM-Tenant » Tue Oct 08, 2013 6:51 am

No. My rent is not market rent but still very high at 1450 mo.
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Postby TenantNet » Tue Oct 08, 2013 10:24 am

First thing to do is to document when it happens. Keep a diary and describe exactly what happens. Keep records of the complaints you've made. See if other tenants are also annoyed.

You need to put pressure on the landlord. But if you aren't rent stab, you don't want to piss off the landlord too much as he will turn on you.

You can withhold rent and your defense is that the LL has failed to abate the nuisance, but you need to keep records. Again, be careful with the landlord and your own protections are minimal.
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Please please help

Postby JM-Tenant » Sat Feb 08, 2014 7:19 am

This torment is still continuing with my drug addicted neighbors banging on my wall as loud as they could. I can’t get the landlord to do anything. They literally wait seconds after I get in from working all night then they start the banging. So if I get in at 7 am in the morning, they come around literally minutes after and start banging as hard as they could. That goes on til late at night, sometimes til 1 am in the morning.
Now it’s the parents as well as the teenagers (and their friends who also live in the building). The father uses a stick he carries and bangs in to the wall with that sometimes.

The landlord won’t do anything about it, and every time I send a letter or complain they say the security guards check the floor and say nobody’s there or it’s unfounded. The teenagers run around to the wall, do the banging then get on the elevator. The parents do it then slip in to their apartment. I tell the landlord they don’t stand around and wait for somebody to catch them doing it!! I’m so angry I don’t know what to do.
And now because of all of my complaints, the superintendent has started to harass me by doing horrible things. He places horrible odors and sometimes fragrances outside my door or in my doorway, and makes it strong enough to where it goes in the apartment, in to my kitchen area. The smells hover at the door for an hour or more.

I have a host of health problems, and I’m even sicker now because of the smells. One afternoon the smell was pure fecal, another day it smelled like dirty soapy water like my apartment was somehow hooked up to the laundry room. It’s weird. I know it’s the super doing this because one day I called to complain, he came up and minutes after he left the smell that was in the doorway went away. He had to turn something off.
I’m thinking of calling OSHA(sp?) next week because the smells are making me so ill.

I don’t know what to do, or who to go to for help. I don’t even know how to get proof of any of this. I’m afraid to leave my daughter in the apartment alone at night. One of the tenants on the same floor asked me not to mention her name to the super or landlord in the dispute because she’s afraid of being harassed.

I found it interesting that she said this because I’d said nothing to her about what was happening with the superintendent. Only the banging I told her about. I think through the rumor mill in the building word has gotten around that they’re now harassing me because of all my letters.
Are there any advocates for tenants who are being severely harassed or is there any place I can go to for help besides the courts?
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Postby TenantNet » Sat Feb 08, 2014 7:54 am

This is what is called low-level harassment and is very difficult to prove or stop. Usually those who engage in it do it for that very reason. Often the recipients are seen as imagining things, or being over-sensitive. How many times have we seen people complain about noises one would fully expect to hear in a large building, like toilets flushing, or just people walking around?

What you need is a witness, or several witnesses, to show that a) it indeed does happen, and b) it's deliberate or of a level sufficient to be above normal building sounds.

A witness should be someone who does not live in the premises.

It would help to have recordings, but those often cannot establish a harassment value.

You could call the police, but the NYPD is notorious for ignoring this kind of harassment. Ultimately you may need to go to the courts, but even that is difficult and costly.
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Postby JM-Tenant » Thu Mar 27, 2014 12:25 pm

I'm trying to record via video but the hook up is proving to be complicated. Yesterday they rammed what sounded like furniture into the same wall and it literally felt like the wall moved.

Then they continued the banging for the next 1/2 hour.

It's so exhausting. I no longer sleep in the bedroom that this happens at. I sleep on a mattress on the living room floor.

The landlord claimed they took them to court and placed them on probation but it hasn't helped.
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Postby TenantNet » Thu Mar 27, 2014 12:37 pm

You can find out what the LL did - or did not do. You can check Ecourts for current cases: https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/housing/

But once done, they come off that list. The better way is to go to the court and requisition the file where you will be able to read any decision, order ir stipulation.

When you document things, you can pressure the LL. Make him take them back to court. You can even withhold rent yourself (with the LL's failure to deal with it as your defense), but that's a difficult claim to sustain.
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Postby JM-Tenant » Thu Mar 27, 2014 1:40 pm

Thank you for the link.

I searched by the tenant name and the landlord -- and for the entire year of 2014.

I even searched under my name. Nothing came up.

I'm wondering if the Landlord lied and told me they took them to court just to make me believe they're doing s'thing.

I think I will take a walk over to the court tomorrow.
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Postby TenantNet » Thu Mar 27, 2014 1:50 pm

The year would be the date the case started, not ended.

If you were not a party, your name would not be on it.

This list is for active cases only.
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Postby TenantNet » Thu Mar 27, 2014 1:51 pm

The year would be the date the case started, not ended.

If you were not a party, your name would not be on it.

This list is for active cases only.

Ask the LL for the docket number.
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Postby JM-Tenant » Thu Mar 27, 2014 2:41 pm

Oh I see.

I was told that this tenant said he had been placed on probation. That wouldn't make it an active case?
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Postby TenantNet » Thu Mar 27, 2014 3:01 pm

I don't think Housing Court has the power to put tenants on probation per se. There might have been a stipulation of settlement where bad behavior could give the LL reason to return the case to the calendar.

But for anything you need to see what the case file says. If they don't have it in the court office, they can retrieve it from the archives - depends on how old it is.

If you don't have the docket number, you will need to search the Housing Court computer.
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