Real Estate

Bed-Stuy Tenants Living In 'Squalor' For Years Sue Landlord: Docs

The MacDonough Street tenants have been living with pests, electricity outages, mold, lead and no gas for years, according to the suit.

Tenants at a MacDonough Street building have been living with pests, electricity outages and no gas for years, according to a lawsuit.
Tenants at a MacDonough Street building have been living with pests, electricity outages and no gas for years, according to a lawsuit. (Google Maps.)

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — Rodents, insects, mold, lead, crumbling ceilings and other conditions at a MacDonough Street building have grown so dire that even a longtime tenants' attorney couldn't believe her eyes, according to a new lawsuit.

Two tenants at the 25 MacDonough St. building sued their landlord for what they call years of worsening "squalor" at the 19-unit building, records show.

"In my over decade experience as exclusively a landlord tenant attorney, I have very rarely seen this much neglect," their attorney Altagracia Pierre-Outerbridge told Patch. "And I have seen a lot."

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A Patch reporter attempted to reach the landlords — identified as Lamarr Jones and Lynne Callender of Gilmer Holding Corp. — about the accusations in the lawsuit but was unsuccessful.

The building owned by Gilmer Holding Corp. has 234 open violations with the city as of Tuesday, according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development database.

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Among the most "egregious" conditions, according to the suit, has been a lack of gas in the building for nearly two years, which has forced at least one of the tenants to cook only from an instant pot since late 2019.

The building's electricity has also been shoddy and regularly goes out for hours or even weeks at a time, tenants say. One of the tenants even says she hurt herself trying to make it through the building when hallway lights were out for more than a month, according to the suit.

"I sustained a fall on the hallway stairs due to lack of electricity in the hallway which went on for over a month and had been repeatedly reported but not addressed prior to my fall," Lorna Holder wrote. "I had to have a doctor's visit and X-ray performed due to my injuries."

Holder, who has lived in the building for more than 40 years, said she's also dealt with a defective stove, a collapsed ceiling, broken floor tiles and mold and lead detected in the building, according to the suit.

Both she and the second tenant, Gail Prescod, claim a persistent pest problem is because of holes in the walls, floors and ceiling that the landlord refused to fix, the suit says.

"I have contacted Landlord many times to request the above repairs... [they have] continued to fail to act in making any repairs, which forces me to live in squalor," Holder writes.

Holder and Prescod say the landlord's neglect at the MacDonough Street building violates their rights to "a livable, safe and clean apartment" under the law.

Through the lawsuit, they are demanding the landlord make the much-needed repairs and pay damages for violating the law.

"In a building with lots of elderly folks who have been living without basic services for years, this is now an emergency and all eyes need to be on it," Pierre-Outerbridge said. "This landlord needs to perform and abide by the law. Enough is enough."


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