The Downtown Express has an interesting story, by Sascha Brodsky, Landlord sues tenant who says she moved away for health, in its September 4th edition:
B.L. Ochman says she can't go back to her apartment in The Battery because of the physical and psychological effects she suffered from the World Trade Center attack.
But her landlord is taking her to court for $21,000 in back rent even though Ochman never returned to One West St. after she was evacuated on Sept. 11.
After the towers fell, she was hospitalized for smoke inhalation and later she came down with pneumonia.
She now has a handful of letters from doctors saying that she shouldn't move back Downtown because of her problems with asthma, post-traumatic stress disorder and a blood disorder.
Some tenants and activists have said that the World Trade Center disaster has left toxic materials, including asbestos, that could aggravate conditions like asthma.
"Things have just been a nightmare," Ochman said. "I have asthma and my pulmonary doctor says I can't live there. And because of the autoimmune disease I have to be in a calm place."
But a lawyer for her landlord said in an interview last week that Ochman was obligated to pay the rent because she signed a lease.
"She had a binding and we can't unilaterally let people walk away from their obligations," said Harry Dreizen, the general counsel for Ocean Partners.
Dreizen said that Ocean Partners was sympathetic to the difficult circumstances many tenants found themselves in after 9/11.
"Our tenants are extremely valuable to us," Dreizen said. "This was devastating to our tenants and to us. This is a community we are very committed to.
Some people felt that they could not continue to live here for psychological reasons. We are not as landlords equipped to differentiate between tenants who are able to live in the building and those who can't."
Dreizen said that the landlord "tried very hard" to rent the apartment to another tenant after Ochman moved out so she could get out of her lease. The apartment was in fact rented several months after Ochman moved out. Ochman said under the terms of her lease, she is not responsible for the full $21,000 of back rent because her apartment was re-rented.
Ochman said that her plea and explanations of her case have gone unanswered. But Dreizen said the problem was that Ochman's lawyers had been negotiating with Ocean Partner's collections attorney who had no power to make a decision to drop the case.
"I have no way of knowing if she gave her documentation to the right person," Dreizen said. "She could have walked to the management office and said 'here is my doctor's report.' I don t know what the result would have been."
But Ochman, who said she only lived at her apartment for six weeks out of a 12-month lease, was served Aug.19 with the lawsuit seeking 10 months rent and legal fees.
Ochman now lives on the Upper East Side and runs her own public relations business from home. She has worked with several pro-bono attorneys but said she has not been able to find one willing to represent her in court.
"I can't afford to pay for a lawyer and I can't afford to pay this ridiculous amount of money the landlord is asking for," Ochman said.