Just as New York City rents hit record-highs, the city's public advocate says landlord violations are setting records too.
The annual "worst landlord watchlist" was unveiled Tuesday, and tenants who live in the top building on the list explained how their residence earned that notorious title. First off, the building doesn't have a superintendent — and hasn't had one in more than two years.
"This is not something we should be doing, we're the tenants," one resident of the Washington Heights building said.
Tenants said that for that time, they've been doing jobs a super generally would be responsible for, like servicing the boiler.
But that's just one of their complaints. Lead violations, heat and hot water outages, vacant apartments left in disrepair — all part of the reason why their building management was one of the worst in the city. One woman said that rats will "climb on the bed" in her apartment.
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"Look how easily able to walk in, look at that broken window there. Anybody here any time, you don't know who they are," said NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, as he toured the building.
But as rent in the city rises, Williams says that conditions for renters have declined
"Too many landlords are putting profits over people and prioritizing circumventing or repealing housing laws, rather than following them," Williams said at a press conference.
Williams' "Worst Landlord Watchlist" features more than 69,000 violations among those mentioned. He said it was the worst one yet, and up 30 percent from 2021.
Topping the list is Johnathan Santana, with an average of 2,980 violations across 15 buildings in Queens and Manhattan, including one in Washington Heights where Bianca llama lives.
"We all live in constant stress and trauma that something bad can happen at any given moment," Ilama said.
NBC New York made multiple attempts to contact Santana, but was unable to reach him.
"What is sad is these buildings are able to remain in these people's hands. Folks like that, should not own buildings," Williams said.
Williams is proposing two bills in New York City Council that he believes would protect tenants and hold bad landlords accountable.
"They're taking our money out of our bank automatically so they're taking our rent, yet they're not giving us services," said one woman.
The public advocate's list is for private landlords, but he said the worst landlord overall is actually the city itself — pointing out a dramatic rise in violations this year from the NYCHA Public Housing system.
