New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, joined by tenants and housing advocates, unveiled his seventh annual Worst Landlord Watchlist on Jan. 21, calling out the city’s most egregiously negligent property owners with the highest number of unresolved housing code violations.
At a press conference outside 80 Woodruff Ave. in Flatbush — a building owned by two of the list’s top offenders, Margaret Brunn and Donald Hastings of A&E Real Estate Holdings — Williams said the pair had accumulated more violations than any landlords in the watchlist’s history.
A combined 60 properties owned by Brunn and Hastings have nearly 9,000 open violations, including rat and roach infestations, mold, heat and hot-water outages, broken elevators and other safety hazards.
“This is the first known instance of the top two landlords representing the same entity, and demonstrates both the breadth of the violations at their properties and the means with which corporate entities seek to avoid accountability with different LLCs and head offices in city records,” Williams said, noting that the city last week settled a lawsuit with A&E Real Estate mandating repairs across its portfolio.
Violations cited on the list include heat and hot-water outages, rodent infestations and collapsing infrastructure. Williams said the watchlist serves as an organizing tool to inform and empower tenants living in buildings owned by the worst landlords so they can demand long-overdue repairs.
The 2025 top 10 worst landlords in New York City, ranked by number of open violations, are:
- Margaret Brunn, 24 buildings with 4,872 open HPD violations
- Donald Hastings, 36 buildings with 3,889 open HPD violations
- Barry Singer, 15 buildings with 2,885 open HPD violations
- Joseph Cafiero, 19 buildings with 2,871 open HPD violations
- Peter Fine, 7 buildings with 2,206 open HPD violations
- Robyn Lucas, 14 buildings with 2,101 open HPD violations
- Yonatan Bahumi, 34 buildings with 1,801 open HPD violations
- Claudette Henry, 25 buildings with 1,738 open HPD violations
- Joseph Pistilli, 8 buildings with 1,656 open HPD violations
- David Tennenbaum, 14 buildings with 1,549 open HPD violations
Williams also criticized the New York City Housing Authority, which he said has “demonstrated an inability to improve conditions,” citing roughly 612,000 open work orders.
“[NYCHA] would far surpass anyone on the list, but they’re public,” he said. “In November of 2025, there were about 612,000 open work orders, near identical number to the previous year. They’re in a category all by themselves.”
City Council Member Rita Joseph, whose district includes Flatbush, said 80 Woodruff Ave. — which was not included in the city’s lawsuit against A&E — had failed its fifth rat inspection since 2018 and currently has 313 open violations, including 73 Class C violations.
“Just since November, HPD has issued 21 violations here for things like rats, mice, cracked walls and floors, overflowing garbage, leaky radiators, household items and garbage left out in the hallways, fire hazards, roach molds, [and] chipping paint,” Joseph said.
Throughout the week, volunteers are independently canvassing A&E-owned buildings, speaking with tenants about organizing, seeking repairs and attending upcoming “Rental Rip-Off” hearings hosted by the Mamdani administration. Organizers joined Williams for a rally outside 80 Woodruff Ave., and the public advocate — who began his career as a tenant organizer more than two decades ago — later joined volunteers to knock on tenants’ doors.
Sabrina Simons, an organizer with the Flatbush Tenant Coalition, also urged passage of “Clean Hands” legislation (S4098/A216), which would bar landlords from evicting tenants for nonpayment if unresolved building code violations exist, giving tenants leverage to secure repairs.
“Clean Hands gives us a tool to fight back by slowing the eviction machine, restoring housing court to its original purpose, and shifting the power away from the neglection of the landlord, and back to the tenants,” Simons said, noting that tenants most affected by housing neglect are overwhelmingly Black and brown residents who suffer health consequences from lack of heat, mold and pests.
After the press conference, Williams joined housing justice volunteers launching a weeklong canvassing effort, speaking with A&E tenants about organizing and repair demands and encouraging them to attend upcoming hearings hosted by the mayor.
Williams also toured the building to view conditions firsthand.
One resident said many tenants avoid using the basement laundry room because of a rat infestation. Brooklyn Paper observed rat droppings throughout the basement, a broken wall with an exposed pipe and water pooling in front of the washing machines.
Another tenant, who has lived in the building for 38 years, reported mold, an exposed gas pipe, a refrigerator door that does not close and an ongoing rat infestation. She said she barricades the area where rats enter her apartment with a makeshift barrier. Her granddaughter, who has asthma, can no longer visit because of the conditions. Brooklyn Paper also observed exposed electrical wiring in the bathroom light fixture.
In another apartment, the ceiling above the shower stall had been covered with plastic after contractors cut a hole to investigate a possible leak affecting a unit below.
Despite the conditions, lawmakers, tenant advocates and residents expressed confidence that Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who revitalized the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants on his first day in office, will use the city’s authority to secure relief for renters.
“I just want to thank the Mamdani administration. It’s night and day, working with an administration that’s more interested in holding bad landlords accountable than just taking their donations,” Williams said, adding that the administration offered to use its platform to publish the list.
“They have made a concerted effort to work with us to hold these landlords accountable. That hasn’t happened before, and so this is the seventh one. This is the first time that from the jump, they want to see how they can help coordinate, use their resources, and use partner resources to uplift this list and to help tenants get organized,” he said.
A spokesperson for A&E Real Estate told Brooklyn Paper the company has invested more than $800 million across its portfolio to improve building conditions, including elevator modernizations at nearly 100 buildings, boiler replacements at more than 150 buildings, full window replacements at more than 100 buildings and more than 70 water and gas riser replacements. The company said it has closed nearly 230,000 work orders and cleared more than 35,000 violations since acquiring its properties.
“To label over $800 million in repairs as ‘neglect’ is misleading and unrealistic, even as we recognize there is much more work to be done. It has been our mission to work with the City to improve every building we manage and address long-standing issues at properties that have been neglected for too long. That will not change,” the spokesperson said, adding that many A&E buildings were already in severe disrepair before the company took ownership.
