A Terrible Brooklyn Landlord Is Actually Going To Jail
Just a nice, orderly boiler room. (Photo via Anthony Delmundo/NYDN)
It’s not all that often that you hear about a landlord quite this bad (and even less often that you hear about actual charges being brought against a landlord this bad), but today, we get a little bit of both. Some excerpts from the Daily News’ insane report on Kris Gounden, the so-called “Worst Landlord in New York,” who not only left his East New York property in an almost cartoonish state of disrepair, but actively worked against anyone, y’know, trying to fix them:
“For the last year, tenants in Gounden’s decrepit six-unit building at 864 Elton St. in East New York, Brooklyn, had to endure heat and hot water outages for weeks at a time. Debris piled up in the driveway, and exposed wires caused sparks to shoot from a light switch. Lights went dark again and again.
Eventually, officials had to cut the locks he put up to make repairs, and would put on their own to keep him away from the broken boiler. The report also notes that the city’s spent about $58,000 in repairs on his building and $7,100 litigating him, and now a judge has hit him with five days in jail and $382,000 worth of penalties. For his part, Gounden has simply called the charges “fraudulent.” Suddenly, our lease’s “no pets” policy seems a little less draconian.
Follow Virginia K. Smith on Twitter @vksmith.
