Filthy, soapy water dripped down the stairs, from roof to lobby, at 709 W. 170th St. in Washington Heights in what looked like a rainstorm on Saturday, Sept. 21, as tenants and elected officials scrubbed and mopped the floors, walls, and windows. Even a local superintendent lent a hand and his power washer.
With the help of the Metropolitan Council on Housing — a tenant’s rights membership organization — the fed-up residents of 709 and 705 W. 170th St., adjacent buildings in Washington Heights, held their third press conference and what they called “the people’s cleanup.”
Due to what they called the overwhelming and illegal negligence of their landlord — Daniel Ohebshalom who also goes by the alias, Jonathan Santana — the residents of both buildings have been conducting cleanups and performing routine maintenance, including repairing a broken boiler during frigid NYC winters. They have also used their own funds to install security cameras in the building. According to the residents, trespassers had been squatting in the hallways and empty apartments due to a broken lock on the lobby door.
“Rats jump out at you,” said one tenant during Saturday’s presser.
Ohebshalom, who also owns buildings in Midtown, the Upper West Side, and Queens, has been listed as the worst landlord in NYC by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams for two years in a row. Ohebshalom, who operates under an alias and several LLCs, such as Belmont Ventures and Highpoint Associates XII, was arrested and charged with eight counts of harassment of a rent-regulated tenant in the first degree, 29 counts of offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree and three counts of endangering the welfare of a child. He was sentenced to serve 60 days at Rikers Island jail.
“He’s been arrested twice and that’s historic in itself because they don’t arrest [landlords],” City Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa told amNewYork Metro, who also mentioned that the…
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