Nearly 3 Years of Constant Problems from Bronx Landlord

My husband and I moved into an apartment located at 740 Revere Avenue in the Bronx, NY in June of 2007. When we initially viewed the apartment it needed a lot of work and we were told that everything would be fixed by our move in date. Upon moving in we realized nothing had been done to fix the apartment. Over the last 2 1/2 years we have repaired the apartment ourselves. The appliances were broken and when we asked the landlord to replace them we were given the run around and then finally sent a “repair tech” who knew absolutely nothing about kitchen appliances. We fixed these ourselves as well. The same with a leaky kitchen pipe and broken toilet. Every time we brought a concern to the landlord, Mario, he called us liars and refused to resolve the issue. Many times he slammed doors in our faces or threatened to kick us out over complaints that should have been taken care of before we moved in. Although he can not fix our apartment he has been able to do major renovations on is own apartment below ours. We are often woken up at 5 or 6am to banging, power tools and yelling. We often times do not have clean running water. The final straw was the heat. Since we have moved in the landlord only turns the heat on when he is home. All day during the week and most weekends we are left without heat throughout the winter. We have been getting by with electric heaters. We confronted him about the heat and dirty water once again late in October, and were met with screaming and door slamming. He called us liars even though we had samples of the dirty water and record of the tempature in the apartment.  He threatened to evict us again and tired of the problems we found a new apartment days later. When we told him of our impending move he threatened to sue us for moving. We have no lease and are current on our rent. He is currently refusing to return security deposits made because he is angry, even though the apartment is in pristine consition.

All in all this apartment has been a nightmare from day one. We have had nothing but problems from the landlord for basic things. He refuses to provide heat or clean water as mandated by law, he is childlike and petty when attempting to resolve a problem. I recommend anyone to stay away from this building if you are looking for a clean, hassle-free rental. We have been good, quiet tenants who always pay our rent on time and have never had problems with a landlord before. Upon signing a lease elsewhere we had a huge feeling of relief knowing that we will be leaving all of this behind.