Updated 12/28:
The management company has replaced the toilet with a working one, and did some cosmetic paint cover up in the bathroom. However, the tenants say there are still 16 outstanding HPD violations to address.
Thomas Hasler lives at 127 E. Seventh St. between Avenue A and First Avenue.
Hasler, a public high school teacher who has been working remotely, and his roommate,
Brian Kenner, have not had a properly working toilet since Nov. 12 ... the latest indignity on behalf of the building's landlord,
Steve Croman ... which prompted Hasler to launch a one-man protest outside No. 127 on Sunday.
"I will go out every day after I finish my remote teaching to let the neighborhood and folks in our building know," Hasler told me via email.
Aside from the toilet, Croman's management company also removed the lock from the building's front door at the height of
the looting this past summer, Hasler said. (The reason given: "There were complaints that packages can not get delivered inside.")
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.
As part of a settlement agreement, 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. ... with NYC Management — a division of the Besen Group — serving as the property manager.
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.
"Harassing rent-controlled tenants in our building has
a long history," Hasler said. "The goal is to get us out and to convert the last remaining units into market-rate units. That's it in a nutshell."
Kenner, the leaseholder on the apartment, has lived in the building for 36 years. During the holidays, he has been working seven days a week.
"So Thomas was bold and fearless enough to organize himself," Kenner said. "I will gladly participate in anything that takes place after my work is done for the day."
According to the two tenants, NYC Management reps have stated there is a "process" to go through to replace the toilet, now scheduled for Christmas Eve. (After seeing our
tweet yesterday about this, local City Councilmember Carlina Rivera's office contacted Hasler as well as the AG's office.)
However, the roommates aren't expecting much. "The date seems pretty meaningless," Kenner said. "Who is there to enforce this date? I believe [their] style would be to promise 'relief' on the day before Christmas, and then not show up."
And how have they been making do these past seven weeks?
"So we use buckets to flush the toilet with hardly any water pressure ... while the market-rent tenant below us who was flooded by our broken toilet on Nov. 11 or Nov. 12 got his damage repaired immediately," Hasler said. "So you end up feeling powerless and harassed. And they think they can get away with it."
