The Connecticut tenants want action and they are asking the town for help.
Tenants at the troubled Avon Place apartment complex in the affluent Farmington Valley suburb of Avon are calling on the town to set up a fair rent commission and fine their landlord for what they describe as dangerous conditions and long-overdue repairs.
But local officials say the owner, Avon Place LLC, already owes more than $1.7 million to the town. The business earlier this year filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and its parent business Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Empire Realty LLC — its parent company — has indicated that it is trying to arrange a sale of the roughly 180-unit complex to a different management company.
Amy Arlin, vice president of the tenants union at Avon Place, said that the people who live there need Avon to move faster and more forcefully. She’s asking the council to expedite its work.
“They said they’re looking into a regional fair rent commission, but we need something before this sale goes through. The new buyer that’s coming is also a slumlord, it’s a predatory landlord that aggressively pursues eviction actions and non-renewals,” she told The Courant.
More than a dozen Avon Place tenants last month announced a new union after complaing that they’d spent months trying to get Empire owner Ahron Rudich to negotiate a timetable for fixing potholes, getting rid of mold inside apartments, cleaning the green water of the outdoor pool, and ensuring reliable, long-term repairs to the elevator.
None of that has happened, and tenants say they’ve waited long enough.
“If he’d tell us what he’ll fix and when, we’d be good with that. But when we talked with his regional representative on Aug. 28, we were told Ahron Rudich would meet with us — but he hasn’t,” Arlin said.
“Tenants are dealing with widespread mold and fungus issues, severe potholes, water leak issues resulting in ceiling collapse, recurrent sewage leaks, chronic problems with heating and hot water, illegal refusal to return security deposits, and a laundry list of other problems,” according to Luke Melonakos, vice president of the Connecticut Tenants Union.
Avon Town Manager Brandon Robertson said Friday that levying fines for overdue maintenance at Avon Place could be problematic.
“We are in the process of coordinating inspections to identify outstanding issues. The fines would be somewhat complicated because of the pending bankruptcy,” he said. “And of course the property owner already owes the town about $1.7 million.”
Robertson said he understands that Avon Place is under contract for sale. The tenants union said that’s not necessarily a good thing.
“Mendel Posner of Up Realty — another NYC-based landlord company notorious across the state for practices of mass eviction, rent hikes, and negligent property management — attended the same (Aug. 28) bargaining session, clearly indicating that Up Realty may soon purchase the apartment complex,” according to Melonakos.
Rudich disputed that his company owes Avon anything near $1.7 million.
“That’s not true. We did have a fire and a problem with insurance, but we’ve only been late on one tax payment,” he said. “As for everything else, it’s not true. We try to be good landlords. There are people in the tenants union who don’t even live in the building, they’re just trying to make trouble. It’s completely political.”
Rudich confirmed that a sale could be imminent.
“We’re in the process and that would clear everything up,” he said.
Arlin said tenants are looking to Avon officials to levy fine and create a fair rent commission partly to ward off retaliation. She said a building manager called police to complain that a tenant had circled the numerous huge potholes in the driveway with red spray paint.
“They called police and said it was vandalism. They sent someone to scrub it,” she said. “Then they dug holes in the dirt alongside and put it in the potholes. Cars have driven ruts into it, and the parking lot was a mess after the rain.”
