Marlene Maldonado and her five-year-old cat Billy don’t particularly want to move out of their Brooklyn Heights apartment.
But they may have no choice.
Their landlord, Brooklyn Law School, is attempting to evict the 57-year-old disabled tenant from 89 Hicks Street, saying she violated her lease by keeping the cat—and a washing machine.
But Maldonado, with help from the Manhattan-based not-for-profit group Mobilization for Youth (MFY) Legal Services, isn’t packing her bags just yet.
“I’ve lived here all my life. I’m going to fight this,” she vowed.
Maldonado, who lives in a rent stabilized apartment and pays about $600 monthly in rent, said her troubles with the law school began about a year after it bought the building from the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2006.
The law school converted the building’s laundry room to a coin operated facility—to be used exclusively by the law school students who are charged up to $1,500 to live in the 42-unit builidng.
Maldonado has agreed to part with her washing machine if she is granted permission to use the exclusive laundry room.
She is less amenable to parting with Billy.
“I’ve had animals my whole life,” she said, noting that she recently gave away her two dogs to a relative.
Garen McClure, a staff attorney with MFY, said the previous landlord knew Maldonado kept animals, and chose to overlook them, “thereby waving the pet clause in the lease.”
According to the law, when a new owner takes possession of a property, “he takes it subject to existing conditions—including the waiver given by the previous owner,” McClure added.
“They waived their right to evict on that condition,” he noted.
Linda Harvey, a spokesperson for the law school, said the case is clear cut. “The litigation is over the tenant refusing to comply with the terms of the lease,” she said. “There are no pets allowed and no washing machines.”
She said the law school sent three letters to Maldonado beginning last July, asking her to come into compliance with the lease.
The school initiated an eviction proceeding in September. The matter will soon be weighed by New York City Housing Court.
Harvey said that in the initial papers filed, Maldonado claimed she needed the cat to help ease her disability, whose nature was not disclosed. The claim has since been withdrawn, Harvey noted.
Dolores Schaefer, the director of development and communications for MFY, said the case is not without irony. For over a decade, ending in 2005, Brooklyn Law School operated a free legal clinic to represent low-income senior citizens facing eviction, landlord harassment and other issues.
Schaefer said that Maldonado’s housing options appear bleak. “Where is this woman going to go?” she wondered. “She is on a fixed income.”
Maldonado said she was content with her previous landlord. “They didn’t harass me,” she said of the religious sect.
With the arrival of law students in the building, Maldonado said she has noticed an increase in noise, as well as the acrid smell of marijuana occasionally wafting through the hallway.
But she doesn’t complain.
“I put up with it,” she said.
