"Hey—I’ve got an idea, how about we" abolish rent control and make it reasonably possible for landlords to evict tenants at the end of their leases, so that landlords don't need to engage in any sorts of "harassment" to get people out of their buildings when those people are paying far below market rent?

Translation of David's comment: Profits are more important than people. Go, landlords, go. Tenants, go to the shelter system, the furthest corners of the city, or wherever, who cares.

Even to imply that landlords would "need" to harrass, as if the type of harassment discussed in the video and in the article are ever justified (telling a Latina woman to put bed bugs in a taco shell and eat them?! I mean COME ON! that is so racist and egregious it speaks for itself!), is to say that the pursuit of profits should be prioritized over basic human needs and dignities. In other words, it's wrongo.

Nice job Kia, playing the race card where no one has mentioned race or made it part of the discussion. Rent control has essentially destroyed the Bronx and quite frankly the concept of rent control would fit in quite nicely with either fascist or socialist ideology.

Understand this, Kia - everyone - absolutely EVERYONE including the personal injury attorneys whose feet you kiss - is out to make a buck. Scruggs and Milberg are not aberrations - just less honest about it.

The way to reform the rental housing market is to let all regulations not specically related to public health and safety issues slide back into the hole from which they came

I'm having a little trouble understanding Paul and David's objections to this bill. After all, it protects property rights--namely, the property rights of a lawful tenant, with whom the landlord has voluntarily entered into a contract.

The bill is not limited to rent-controlled units. It probably has more applicability to such units, for lazy landlords who aren't interested in following statutory procedures for eviction.

As for the validity of rent control, Paul and David seem to be suggesting that otherwise unlawful behavior (harassment, violation of the tenant's right to quiet enjoyment) is justified if it leads to eviction of a tenant in a rent-controlled unit. I'm having a hard time fathoming this end-justifies-the-means approach that tramples on property rights and the law; if landlords truly wish to overturn rent control, they are free to lobby their representatives to do so. There is nothing conservative, or respectful of property rights, in the attitude "screw the law and screw the lease, just scare them out."

Mythago:

The acts the law bans are already against the law by themselves; a law against taking a tenants property or against assaulting or threatening to assault a tenant is hardly needed, and that's not why it was enacted or why Kia is celebrating it. The focus of this law, as both common sense and the comments of its sponsors makes clear, is to protect rent-controlled/stabilized tenants, who in most cases can't be evicted, whether the landlord is "lazy" or not.

Do I think landlords should be allowed to assault or otherwise "harass" rent-controlled tenants? Of course not. But this isn't a normally-occurring problem, and would hardly require a special law; landlords, like other businessmen, generally don't have an incentive to harass their customers. The reason the problem exists -- to the extent that it does at all, as opposed to creating yet another tool for tenants to use to harass landlords -- is because rent-control allows tenants to stay indefinitely in other people's property at far-below-market rates.

As for your paean to democracy, there are a lot more tenants than landlords, so it's not surprising that lobbying one's representatives isn't very effective. But the fact that tenants have voted themselves rights in other people's property is the problem.

The law makes clear that harassment is a violation of the Housing Code. I'm not sure why this would be controversial. If the actions are already criminal (which is what I assume you mean by "illegal")or civilly actionable, then surely there is nothing wrong with making it clear that the same actions violate the tenant's property rights. If it's superfluous it's harmless, right? (If you follow the link, the bill has provisions to protect owners against frivolous claims and permits them to rebut a harassment claim by showing the owner acted in good faith.)

It is quite true that owners are limited in their reasons for evicting tenants from rent-controlled housing, and so antiharassment provisions in the Housing Code will have greater applicability to rent-controlled housing. That's why Kia is celebrating. It's also why you're reflexively against it.

As for your grumbling about democracy, if tenants had all the power, every unit would be rent-controlled and every law would be anti-landlord. That's not the case, which suggests that there is something more than "there are more tenants than landlords so they win" going on. And, again, the way to get rid of rent-control laws is to get rid of the laws--not to stonewall any law that might in some way benefit tenants in rent-controlled units.

This happened to my wife and I a little over a year ago and we were forced to move several thousand miles, away from our home and friends because we could not afford to stay in hotels for $200/night while our landlord took almost a year to do what was probably a one week repair. Oh, and it wasn't at all clear that he had done it. He wouldn't discuss what he would do. Oh, and I was sick and am still sick from that apartment. Oh, and many months later, after we had asked for our deposit many times, and as we were living on the other side of the country, he sued to evict us from the place we had left ages before.

Evidently, THEY DO THIS ALL THE TIME. Its business as usual. We were told by one lawyer (who wasn't interested in helping us) to be happy we hadn't been 'burned out' which means have our building burned down with us still in it.

We didn't live in NYC but it was a similar situation. If any of you rent (or even own) and you doubt that something like that can happen to you, I have a bridge I would like to sell you. This country is becoming a hell for people who are not rich.

Pray.

Wow. Thanks for sharing your story. We certainly have come across some hard times, coupled with a growing disdain for the working and middle classes that makes it even more difficult to survive. Yet somehow those most subject to this abuse are portrayed as the abusers. It's twisted.