Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Tenants: Pigeons have made empty apartment a health hazard in this Steve Croman-owned building on 7th Street

Tenants at 127 E. Seventh St. say that a "toxic health hazard" exists in this building owned by convicted felon Steve Croman between Avenue A and First Avenue.

According to the residents, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation by the landlord, four rent-regulated apartments remain vacant (since 2019) in the 12-unit building.

One of the residences, apartment 4A, is said to be in deplorable shape. 
Tenants say that someone left a window open inside the apartment. As the photos below show, the apartment is now home to several pigeons... as well as several dead pigeons. The apartment is also "filled with feces, flies and maggots on the dead animals," per the tenants, who have dubbed this space "Croman's Poison Pigeon Coop."

Croman's management company and the New York State Attorney General's office were made aware of these conditions on May 8. However, neither side responded to the conditions, the tenants said. (The tenants also said they were disappointed with the lack of action by the AG's Tenant Monitor, established as part of Croman's settlement with the State.)

Meanwhile, at least one city agency is investigating the conditions in the apartment... which you can see for yourself ... 
Croman was released from jail in June 2018 after serving eight months for mortgage and tax fraud. In a separate civil case with the AG's office, Croman agreed to pay $8 million to the tenants he was accused of bullying out of their rent-regulated apartments. 

Croman agreed to relinquish direct control of his 100-plus rental buildings — including 47 with 617 units in the East Village — for the next five years as part of a settlement agreement. NYC Management — a division of the Besen Group — serves as the property manager for the portfolio. 

According to a published report at The Real Deal in October 2019, "The notorious landlord is back in action and hasn't changed his ways" since his release from behind bars.

9 comments:

east village tours said...

why can't landlord simply replace windows??

Emily said...

@east village tours - it doesn't even say the window is broken, just open.

I'm a Croman tenant and afraid for when this 5 year period ends.

anonymous said...

And this apartment can be yours for the low low price of $4800 a month!!🤦‍♂️

Anonymous said...

This just seems stupid - would a insurance company cover this?

Last year at 331 E 5th st a tree fell and smashed out several windows, they immediately fixed the drunk toys they provide to their kidults but left a window smashed open for a month - it stormed multiple times and they then had to renovate that room and I'm sure it was tagged to the rent control amount.

Anonymous said...

That's our Croman.

Brian said...

What a waste. Responsible management and ownership is key. Management or ownership want this to happen? They want their building to deteriorate for some reason? Or are they just so lax to let this happen to a multimillion dollar asset? I feel sorry for the current tenants who may be seriously endangered by this and have an unresponsive landlord.

Jason said...

"The tenants also said they were disappointed with the lack of action by the AG's Tenant Monitor, established as part of Croman's settlement with the State"

It's probably the exact same "monitor" they assigned to us when our building was bought by notorious Icon Realty, who had been fined half a million dollars the previous year for harassing rent stabilized tenants. The guy was completely useless and we couldn't see any point to him whatsoever. Whenever we had a problem with Icon not abiding by the rules during their highly intrusive renovations, we'd email this guy only for him to eventually email back "I contacted Icon and they said it's all good" or words to that effect. This is the response we told him that we'd seen asbestos abatement workers going into an apartment with full protective gear, despite having been promised by Icon that there was "no asbestos in the building." We just got no acceptable response out of him whatsoever and he didn't care about any problem we had. Pointless waste of time.

Anonymous said...

Normal for croman building.

Anonymous said...

GROSS