Family fears losing lease after complaining

Vivian Kirkland has faced issues with her landlord since the day she first moved in, she said. 

Now, after months of disputes with Parkoff Management Offices, she accuses the company of trying to force her out of the apartment, despite a full year remaining on her lease. Parkoff Management Offices did not respond to requests for comment. 

Kirkland, along with her husband Patrick and their son, first moved to 2728 Henry Hudson Parkway in May, 2016 from their previous home in Manhattan. 

They moved, she said, because they liked the neighborhood and it made for an easier commute. The Kirklands hired a broker, who found them an apartment on the second floor of the nine-story building, and began the process of leasing the apartment. 

After applying and being approved, Kirkland heard from Parkoff Management, telling her that the apartment she and her family wanted had been taken. Instead, the company offered them a two-year lease in a unit on the eighth floor. Some 10 months later, the unit on the second floor still sits vacant, Kirkland said 

Kirkland claims that when she and her family signed the lease, they were told they could not move in until May 3 because of a supposed policy prohibiting tenants from moving in on weekends. But a billing receipt charged them for the entire month of May, and a portion of April, she said. 

“They charged us an extra four days before May, [when] we didn’t move in until May 3,” Kirkland said. 

The problems, she said, have only gotten worse from there. For the first two months she and her family lived in the Hudson Gardens, she and her neighbors had no access to the elevator on their side of the building, and were forced to take the other elevator to the roof, walk across and take the stairs from there. 

“We had to cross the roof with my child all the way on the top… my son can actually easily fall off the roof,” she said. “In the lease, it says nobody should be accessing the roof, but when the elevator was [being fixed], we had to cross the roof and they did not give us any deduction because of the inconvenience.”

Kirkland also received a bill from her landlord for installing a window guard, she said, although her son is younger than 10—the age until which a child’s family is eligible for having the landlord install window guards free of charge. 

Then, she dealt with a mouse infestation, which did not stop until a neighbor suggested she should bring evidence of the mice to the property manager’s office, Kirkland recalled. 

“Someone in the building told me, ‘Maybe you should just drop it off in the office and let them know what you are dealing with,’” she said. 

“Finally, they had somebody come in to close the hole was because we brought down the mice to their office,” she said. 

Most recently, Kirkland has had a parade of city employees inspect her home for lead and mold, which she claims Parkoff Management Offices has not yet addressed. 

Instead, Parkoff Management sent a letter, dated Jan. 30, saying the company did not want to renew the Kirklands’ lease and asked them to be out of the unit by April 30. But the family’s current lease, which Kirkland showed to The Press, is a two-year lease, good for another year until April, 2018.

“They are trying to kick us out now, because I have made a lot of complaints to HPD [the Department of Housing Preservation and Development] and 311,” Kirkland said. “I’m sure they’re thinking, ‘We don’t want to deal with these people in anymore…’ so now it’s a problem for us in this moment, they are telling us we have to move out so we have to fight back.”