81 year old woman prisoner in Apartment for two Years

For two years  Ms. Olga Zhuravel was locked in her apartment because her landlord  Moshe Piller would not give her the keys to use the wheel chair accessible ramp.

My guess is that Olga had a rent stabilized apartment and it seems that Mr. Piller wanted to create an atmosphere of harassment and stress so that she would move out. This is a common practice in NYC. Some landlords (I suspect the majority)_ use such techniques as a matter of course. The have a playbook and a lawyers advice. What kind of people are these?

Mr. Pillar will probably get a slap on the wrist and maybe a fine in Housing Court so there is really no deterrent NOT to engage in such practices.

Olga was probably in a rent stabilized apartment and she probably had it for years. If this were the case her rent was well below market value. She could have been paying $300.00 for an apartment that had a $2500.00 market value. Mr. Piller knew that she was old she was infirmed, no question that she was vulnerable. His lawyer will argue that Olga lost the key, that he gave it to her but she doesn't remember due to her Alzheimer's and the judge will believe him.  I can't tell you whether or not the landlord was sent a letter by certified mail explaining the problem, but if he claims he didn't get the letter the judge will have a good reason to rule in Mr. Pillers favor.

(If you have a problem in your apartment send a certified letter to your landlord. Don't forget to keep the little blue slip, and the receipt. And just for more insurance, I would pay extra for a signature confirmation. I lost a case because I didn't not keep the blue slip even though I had a receipt and a signature conformation. That's what you get when you don't have a lawyer).

If Olga is lucky and can hire a  lawyer he or she will argue that even if Olga did not remember the key it could have been given to the family members who had to carry her up and down the stairs for an occasional outing.

Do you remember the last pod cast I did about  man that jumped  from his fourth floor apartment window to his death just to avoid eviction?   This is NOT an uncommon practice. It is shameful and disgusting.

And just so you know there are 24,000 evictions a year in NYC. That's about 65 a day. I can't tell you how many of those are residential or commercial because the statistics are not available...yet! That's 65 evictions a day!

FACTOID:    One out of three people that are evicted end up homeless.