Tenants alleviate Kushner firm pushed them out of their homes

Twenty current and train residents of one of the largest buildings owned by the Kushner Cos. allege in a $ 10 million lawsuit that the firm used relentless, noisy construction that exposed them to cancer-causing dust in the air

The lawsuit and a President Donald Trump's son-in-law White House adviser Jared Kushner. More than a dozen tenants described how to hammer and drill so loudly it's normal conversation, rats crawling through holes, shaking walls, workers with passkeys in unannounced, and so much dust that it covered beds and clothes in closets. They say those conditions, along with $ 500 or more a month, made living unbearable.

"Today's lawsuits against the Kushner Cos. Reads like a playbook of actions taken by bad-acting landlords," said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who announced the lawsuit on Monday with holding rights advocates. "They are borrowing off the same playbook … because they realize there is a major gap in the system that allows the same plays to be called routinely and they get the same success – they are winning."

If it was a campaign, it was remarkably successful. AP's investigation found that over three years, more than 250 percent of the buildings – 75 percent of the building – were either invested or sold by the Kushner Cos. Austin Nichols House in the Williamsburg Brookburg section of Brooklyn to luxury condos. They were so much more than $ 155 million, an average of $ 1.2 million per apartment.

"They won, they succeeded," says Barth Bazyluk, who left apartment C606 with his wife and baby daughter in December. "You have to be ignorant or dumb to think this was not deliberate."

The Kushner Cos. said in a statement that the lawsuit is "totally without merit" and they will fight it vigorously. It has been noted that it is one of the most important things in the world, and that it has not yet been brought into force.

"Tenants were never pressured "1965 The Landmarked Austin Nichols House at 184 Kent Ave., for decades of warehouse for groceries and Wild Turkey Bourbon," said the company, which commented that the city's inspectors were "

was born in 1965 when he bought it and bought it in a new building.

When Jared Kushner and two partners bought it for $ 275 million in April 2015, they made it clear they wanted to convert the building's 338 apartments – all of them rent-stabilized – into condos. All but nine were occupied, if they wanted to get tenants out.

Kushners began extensive renovations, ripping out appliances, floors and countertops

"There were lots of people in the hallway early, 8 or so, banging on things, taking down the walls." There were lots of dust … They had fans, and they were blowing dust under the doors, "says tech salesman Marcus Carvalho, who left the building in December after six years, deciding the $ 1,000 or so. "I did not want to spend another minute in that construction zone."

His 679-square-foot (63-square-meter), one-room apartment, B502, sold the next month for $ 800,000.

A few weeks after Carvalho left, the woman in C405 could not take the noise anymore.

"It's like having a root canal without the physical bread … It's drilling from every direction," says Jane Coxwell, Chef who works late nights and writes at home during the day. "

Then came the rats, including one with a tennis racket and it was teetered on a curtain rod in her bathroom . She also had a lot of problems with the subject, but she always had a lot of trouble with it.

Coxwell, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, says she feels dozens of emails to Kushner for a job, but got little relief.

One particularly noisy day she finally broke up, walked up to a

"I understand you have to work, but I do not know how to ask for more," she pleaded. "Please, please, can you keep it down?"

She says the men just laughed.

Much of the work was done in 2016, and then the Kushners went on a selling spree. In 2017 alone, the company sold 99 apartments in the building, according to Jared Kushner's federal financial disclosure forms. Brokerage data show an additional 16 apartments sold by early March 2018. That same month Kushner Cos. had 151 vacant apartments in the building, according to a short document.

Under rent stabilization rules, landlords are limited in each other, but in this building going to more than $ 3,000 a month.

After people complained, the people of the United States about dust, Kushner Cos. put plastic sheeting around doorways, so many say it did not help much. The banner says 'Luxury Waterfront Homes For Sale,' "says plaintiff Jeff Werner, a banker who has lived in the building for eight years.

years. "It does not advertise" Live in a Construction Zone with White Toxic Dust Blowing. "

Dust Samples taken by nine by Olmsted Environmental Services turned up dangerously high levels of lead and crystalline silica. Breathing in tiny silica particles, liver disease and an incurable swelling of the lungs

The lawsuit alleges Kushner Cos. The Kushner Cos. (19659002) The Kushner Cos. disputed the findings of the environmental report, published a few years ago. The company did not respond to a request for the Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Tenant Protection Unit, which is looking at the company violated state housing laws and regulations meant to prevent landlords from disturbing the tenants' peace and privacy.

"Aaron Carr, head of the Watchdog Housing Rights Initiative, whose investigation led to the lawsuit. "The scale and speed of tenants leaving, the conditions to which they are exposed, provides a window into the Kushner Cos." predatory business model. "

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Burke reported from San Francisco. AP researchers Jennifer Farrar and Randy Herschaft contributed to this report