According to LAS, Parkash, alongside room rental business operator, Luis Bello, was involved in a scheme to charge tenants more rent than permitted by NYC’s rent-stabilization laws.

LAS wrote that, “To further maximize profits and prevent tenants from asserting their rights, Bello and his agents engaged in egregious behavior, regularly intimidating and harassing some tenants by destroying their property, making physical and verbal threats, and illegally locking them out of their homes.Parkash also commenced dozens of sham eviction proceedings, leaving Bello free to replace old tenants with new occupants and continue the scheme.”

In 2023, Parkash was also sued by tenants of one of his buildings in Queens for ignoring requests to remove mold, roaches, and mice, as well as failing to provide adequate heat in the winter.

Lack of heat due to greedy and negligent landlords is a persistent problem in the Bronx, leading many to resort to space heaters which can pose a fire hazard. According to a 2023 report from the New York City comptroller’s office, an outsized share of heating complaints came from buildings concentrated in the Northwest and South Bronx, northern Manhattan and central Brooklyn, some of the poorest areas in New York City and the country overall.

Although New York City has laws on the books to enforce adequate heat, data shows that these laws often go unenforced. According to the comptroller’s report, of the 1,077 buildings that registered at least five complaints per heat season, the city government failed to take any action to enforce existing laws in over 25% of these buildings.

Following the deadly Twin Parks fire, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation that targeted not the negligent landlords that fail to adequately heat their buildings, but instead the sale of space heaters themselves.

Yogthos

2025-01-11 01:10:01

The five-alarm fire in the Bronx sheds light on how landlords are extracting profit by maximizing the suffering of their tenants, and how New York City is doing little to stop it.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/10/negligent-landlords-strike-again-in-the-bronx-apartment-fire-displaces-over-200/