Shortly after memos are handed in, Judge Hahn makes her decision. Tenant is awarded an abatement of $1650 for the months she was without sufficient heat, $1650 for the money landlord’s niece illegally charged her, key money, to obtain the apartment, $43.34 she paid for a space heater and $18.48 for caulking to seal openings in the apartment against the cold. This money is to be subtracted from rent owed and the rest of the arrears must be paid within 5 days, otherwise landlord has the right to evict her.
Although Tenant handed the court a self-addressed envelope for the decision to be mailed to her, the envelope is not used and the decision is sent to the wrong address. More than five days elapse before she is made aware of the problem. Back to 114 she traipses - What’s to be done about the eviction? With all the violations in the apartment, she is not impressed with judge’s decision, but can’t appeal because someone forgot to put a tape in the recorder at trial and there is no record of the proceeding.
Looking over Judge Hahn’s decision, This is good. You won the case, says a Resource Center attorney dismissing Tenant’s disappointment on the verdict. As for the other matter, you need to file an Order to Show Cause To vacate default judgment and to Restore to the Calendar, an Affidavit in Support of an Order to Show Cause to Vacate a Judgment explaining that the decision did not reach you in the allotted time.
Tenant fills out the necessary papers in 225 and also deposits the money owed landlord. The office accepts it and forwards it to the Department of Finance. This, it turns out, is much to the landlord’s displeasure. She would have preferred that Tenant give her the money directly instead of the DOF, which have charged her $100 to retrieve it.
The order to show cause is granted and the matter is resolved. Opposing attorney then files an order nunc pro tunc, a Latin term meaning "now for then" that if granted changes an earlier judgment, and an Affirmation in support for the error landlord made in calculating the money owed her. Tenant owes a further $1650. Bronxman’s motion is granted.
Tenant has pinned the picture of a gorgeous, strapping Wall Streeter in a well-filled white shirt and a tie, suspenders holding up grey suit trousers at her desk corkboard. His hair is steel grey with touches of black, and he wears rimless glasses. The man carries a large covered office box on top of which rests a piece of art in a black frame. He is crossing Wall Street, looking directly into the camera's eye, This is it! It's all over now. I am moving on. The look is confident, cognizant, ready.
The city’s financial situation is bleak, as is the country, and the globe for that matter. It was a long time coming. The current mess was created by people who knew what they were doing was financially impossible to sustain. But -- Not my responsibility, they said and passed it down the line to the next guy. Have they learned from the government’s bailout? No, they are still partying.
There may be something in it for renters. Although the price of luxury condos is still going up, they're not selling as much. Realtors are talking of renting these condos. And then Wall Street Masters of the Universe, whose taxed earnings comprise one fifth of the New York State budget, are being fired or quitting hurting the businesses that cater to them, the insurance companies, accountants, the restaurants, clothing establishments, spas, luxury goods, the shoe shine guys, manicurists, hoochie coochie girls, the list goes on and on. Without circulating money fueling New York City's economy real estate moguls will have to lower their expectations.
Gentrification has had a way of clearing out the dope dealers, the whores, the struggling artists, the funky little diners, the hangouts, and replacing them with cookie cutter, spend-your-money and be-seen, venues. The idea of art is something that's been screened by the NY Times. Without some authority to endorse it, what can it possibly be worth?
Senator Schumer on the cover of the Sunday Times surrounded by Wall Street honchos spouts off about Wall Street being the city’s most important business. Not true, New York would die without its artists, from fashion design to architecture, poetry to music, the culinary arts, the designers in all fields, the Rockettes, rock & rollers, television networks, movie makers. Losing sight of these values, the city becomes unbalanced, like Schumer and the rest of Congress allowing Wall Street a free hand, no rules attached, go for it guys. They did. It’s not about making money, it's about creating, and having a good time, money is only the fuel, not the vehicle that gets one there. There is no insurance against life. It will find you.
Another piece of the economic infrastructure crumbles every day. Commerce Bank has been swallowed by TD Bank. TD? Commerce had the color red as its symbol and used it in their decor. Not to TD taste, their color is green. Transitional banks now sport red and green decor. TD stands for Toronto Dominion; a Canadian bank is moving into the country and they are flooding the city with green logo ball point pens. One sees them everywhere even in housing court.
A local news item in New York Magazine has a report of a NYC woman driving 10 blocks with a repo man holding on to the hood of her car seeking to repossess it. The peasants with pitchforks in hand are revolting. Is Washington listening? It has not understood how fed up and angry people are with the capitalist system. There's a credit card revolution on YouTube, people are refusing to pay the exorbitant interest rates, others are protesting in front of medical insurance companies, and everyone's ripped about the windfall profits of the very banks that have been saved handing out the biggest bonuses yet. Let them eat cake, said La Reine Antoinette.
The medical insurance program congress is attempting to pass, dubbed Obamacare is a pathetic little band aid on the gaping wound that is America's medical system, but a windfall for the Health Maintenance Organizations. Practically every corporation in the country is running a scam. These CEO's think they can keep running their con, ripping off people and not suffer any consequences. Whole towns are being decimated by the real estate subprime hustle, house after house stands empty, their former owners having filed bankruptcy, thus affecting their purchasing power for the next seven years.
Are people living beyond their means? The whole system is living beyond its means. Potholes in the streets, a decaying infrastructure, homeless people, inferior schools indicate a city spending recklessly and not taking care of the home front. The system is unaffordable.
Back to Housing Court, for a fifth time on the HP Action, the end of hearings has been reached. Per agreement all repairs are to be complete; they are not. On being informed of landlord’s bullying tactic, Judge Cohen had issued an order, “Respondent agrees that none of the work entailed under the current order shall be conducted by the respondent.” Tenant has also written to Bronxman who is similarly abusing his rights:
My patience has come to an end with your self-important posturing, your blustering “I am an officer of the court” statements, (if only you behaved as one!) the jeers, the insults, the menacing behavior, your late evening wake-up call to bring papers easily delivered at an appropriate hour.
You have failed to properly advise your client, a woman of limited education and volatile nature, rather you have encouraged her to believe she could subvert the court’s intentions with impunity and have placed her in her current predicament, while you continue to profit from it.
You come to court ill prepared, you avoid certified mail, and what is one to make of objections like this one:
“This court lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate Respondent’s claims to Respondent’s.” ? ? ?
Your letter again encourages your client to believe that I have deliberately prevented her from completing the work, and please note that the HP Action demands that work in both public areas, (still uncompleted) and in my apartment be fulfilled.
From the beginning, when you attempted to undermine court proceedings by trying to trick me into signing away my right to have the court oversee the curing of violations in my apartment and in the public areas of the building, you have relied on gamesmanship. Is it any wonder that I insist you put your words in writing?
Landlord and attorney do not show up for last hearing. What’s to be done, she asks Mark Roeder, the HPD attorney on the case.
If you have the postal return receipt from the Post Office indicating that you properly served the attorney at the allotted date, Judge Cohen will impose a fine, he says. Tenant has left the receipt at home. No problem, go back, get it and be back by 2.
Landlord is fined $7030 for not showing up. “Score one for the little guy,” she tells Mark Roeder.
There is still court ordered work to be completed for which Tenant will have to initiate another Order to Show Cause to Restore For Compliance in order to get the reparations completed as the case is now closed. Contempt charges are needed to stop landlord delaying tactics. She is told by Judge Cohen she may serve respondent personally in this matter, no need for a postal certified, return receipt letter.
Landlord has avoided hiring a painter for the past 4 months, no doubt because she was affronted when told to stay out of Tenant’s apartment by police, and then by the court. She sees her troubles in terms of a personal vendetta against Tenant. She is petty and delights in instigating mischief. The suit brought by HPD for lack of heat this past winter is still pending.
Since the $7030 fine landlord is making effort to get things fixed, perhaps she will try and resolve the case; Tenant may get the radiator that she originally asked for, the request that started this business.
Opposing party doesn't show up for the HPD lack of heat court hearing (a possible $52,000 fine), and when they do appear, the case is dismissed because HPD improperly served Bronxman. Landlord is fined $250 for the 2 days where lack of heat was recorded by HPD inspectors, not for the lack of heat the past 3 months. Another inspection occurred in April when the outdoor temperature registered 70 degrees and the boiler was not operating, therefore the agency states violation was corrected. Tenant’s apartment was not inspected at the time. The HPD attorney avoids eye contact with Tenant at end of hearing. No radiator.
Bronxman files a motion in the HP Action to vacate the $7,030 fine stating that he did not receive the notice, in spite of documented postal receipt, and Tenant is not allowing access to the apartment for the work to be completed. Judge Cohen grants his motion and the fine is dismissed.
There are three months left before the lease runs out when she will vacate premises, and undoubtedly New York. Her name is assuredly on a real estate blacklist for her many court appearances. She is tired of the New York hustle, the constant need to make more and more money as rents go up yearly by legal decree. One’s rent payment is doubled every 10 years according to rent stabilization rules. Salaries do not. She also doesn't want to live in the apartments her money can lease.
Where will she move to? New York will not easily be replaced. An installation by the artist Song Dong at MoMA brings the moving experience into glaring focus. He took the entire contents of his mother's small house in China and laid them out in a mosaic of pots, dishes, shoes, wiring, odd boards, cracked pottery, old toys, shopping bags, bottle caps, fabric scraps, ad finitum. She had lived through a depression and saved everything in case the bad times came back.
It takes a full month to pack her own things.
Norman Mailer, when referring to the mass media spoke of it in terms of power. One wants to exert power over a society that can quickly roll over oneself:
“The mass media is made up of a group of people who are looking for power. The reason is not because they have any moral sense, any inner sense of a goal, of an ideal that's worth fighting for, dying for, if one is brave enough. No, the reason they want power is because power is the only thing that will relieve the profound illness which has seized them, which has seized all of us. The illness of the twentieth century, there isn't enough psychic room for all of us.” And one might add, physical room.
Power is not something one can possess; it has to come from within. An individual's power in current times is so diminished and sabotaged by society that fully 75% are ignorant of the most basic rules of logical thinking and live in a crude, savage world ruled by primitive emotions. The state, which has been in a near constant war since its inception, will not find the wherewithal to provide its citizens with shelter, medical attention, or education. Not the American way; socialism! Why waste money that could go for worthier purposes? Ignorant people are easily replaceable. New ones are produced every day.
But one does have power, the trick is to find a way to tap into it.
Tenant receives a notice of petition, nonpayment in the mail. Landlord is taking her to court on a second nonpayment petition.
What? I’m already paid up.
For this hearing, landlord's attorney is licking his chops at the thought of coming before Judge Hahn again, but Judge Hahn is now holding court in Harlem. Judge Schneider presides. About two sentences into her opening remarks, Tenant knows this woman will be fair and she will get justice.
First order of business is a traverse hearing to determine whether lawyer has properly served Tenant the nonpayment petition papers, (he does not hire a process server, but does it himself.) She wins the traverse hearing, with the very same evidence presented to Judge Hahn at the first nonpayment hearing. Landlord has to start over. Judge Schneider also dismisses the nonpayment case after Tenant presents evidence of her up-to-date rent payment. Landlord’s attorney proposes letting her stay in the apartment for the next month, without charge, if she will agree to leave afterward.
The nonpayment hearing was initiated to provide landlord with an opening to offer money, making sure Tenant leaves when the lease is up. For a moment Tenant hesitates, why not? But while they are out in the hall discussing strategy, she decides that she doesn’t want to make deals. She is not in court to make money, but to obtain justice.
ON THE DOCKET:
HPD:
ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE, SEEKING CIVIL PENALTIES FOR HEAT AND HOT WATER VIOLATIONS, INDEX NO. 688/09,
(ruling, $250 FINE)
LANDLORD
PETITION – NONPAYMENT, index number 60050/09, (ruling for Tenant, award $3361.82)
ORDER NUNC PRO TUNC, landlord error calculating money owed. Tenant owes a further $1650 (ruling for landlord.)
PETITION – NONPAYMENT index no. 83004/09, (dismissed, improper serve, nonpayment ruling for Tenant)
TENANT
ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE, TO RESTORE FOR COMPLIANCE & ASSESSMENT OF CIVIL PENALTIES index no. 463/09, (ongoing.)
ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE TO VACATE DEFAULT JUDGMENT AND TO RESTORE TO THE CALENDAR, index number 60050/09, with affidavit seeking to vacate a judgment: decision did not reach Tenant in the allotted time. (Ruling for Tenant.)
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