This landlord’s vermin-infested buildings have tenants itching to get out.
Residents of about a dozen buildings owned by the Tran Group are in a state of revolt and even refusing to pay rent — saying they’ve been living in houses of horrors plagued by rats, house mites, unsafe construction and even a discarded toilet stored in an apartment lobby.
Tran owner Son “Sonny” Tran and associate Anh Do haven’t addressed the complaints at least 10 buildings in Manhattan and the Bronx — instead opting to pay fines and keep up business as usual, tenants said.
“Our front door is always broken. The cameras in our building don’t work. We have no exterminator here,” said Milan Moore, a Lower East Side tenant leader for the group. “I was without any way of cooking for over four months. Rats are running in the basement. This has to stop.”
Tran properties average 467 open Housing and Preservation Department violations per building, ranging from mold, leaking roofs and missing smoke and carbon monoxide alarms – as well as 12 Department of Buildings violations per building to date, according to city records.
The violations earned Do the No. 88 spot on Public Advocate Jumaane Williams’ worst landlord list this year.
“I’m alarmed at the scale of violations and indifference toward resident well being in many Tran Group buildings,” New York City Comptroller Brad Lander said in a statement. “I urge Sonny Tran to follow his legal and moral obligations and implore the city to continue closely monitoring these buildings for escalation of enforcement as needed until tenants are living in safe and dignified conditions.”
Apart from the city’s reports of construction without a permit, lead dust, structural concerns, asbestos and more, tenants’ observations range from the kooky to disgusting.
Among the complaints: a toilet sat for a week in a lobby at the Riverside Studios building at 342 West 71st St. in April; a gas outage went unresolved for 18 months at the same building; construction dust at 219 East Fifth St. was found to have three times the legal level of lead; and a tenant at 218 Thompson St. reported he was bitten dozens of times by house mites.
Rodent populations at the Greenwich Village building on Thompson Street – located less than two blocks from Washington Square Park – have grown to “plague proportions,” resident and Tran Tenant Coalition leader William Moye said.
“Mice persist inside the building. I get bitten by house mites and suffer from swelling, eschars and rashes,” he said. “Tran Group sets out boxes of poison, which young rats quickly learn to avoid.”
In a lawsuit filed in April, tenants of Riverside Studios admitted to going on a rent strike since November due to the “dangerous living conditions and serious loss of services within the building.”
The lawsuit details common areas littered with garbage, broken intercoms, bedbug infestations in community bathrooms, mice and roaches in hallways, defective banisters and fire escapes, as well as an elevator frequently out of commission at the seven-story building.
The landlords’ lawyers largely denied the claims brought forth by the 26 tenants, and stated the suit “contains legal conclusions to which no response is required.” A judge ordered the violations to be corrected or be subject to a $50 to $150 fine per day for each violation.
A spokesperson for the Tran Group couldn’t be reached.
Advocates with the coalition said the issues affect senior residents and other long-term tenants, including over a dozen rent stabilized tenants. Stabilized units at some buildings have been slashed by as much as half since 2007, according to Who Owns What.
Residents have since attempted to take matters into their own hands, penning a June 24 letter with demands to resolve the welfare concerns once and for all. However, tenants claimed the landlord responded that all issues were “resolved or being resolved” – all while rodents ran rampant and garbage piled up.
A handful of elected officials have taken up support of the Tran Coalition’s cause, from Assembly member Linda B. Rosenthal and State Sens. Brian Kavanagh and Brad Hoylman-Sigal, as well as City Council members Carlina Rivera and Gale Brewer.
“For far too long, my constituents and other Tran tenants have been subjected to untenable conditions that most New Yorkers couldn’t imagine in their wildest nightmares,” Rosenthal said.
“It’s time to build on our collective progress by fighting for safe, habitable housing for tenants living in Tran buildings across the city.”
