When Ramona Brown’s landlord increased her rent last year, she didn’t know he may have been breaking the law. If she had, she might not be sitting in her living room now contemplating ways to attach her oxygen machine to a car battery so she can continue to use it when she becomes homeless this week.
Brown lives in a nondescript two-story apartment building in South Park. Mold covers her ceilings. Packing tape holds the kitchen cabinets closed—an effort to keep rats from coming through the wall and into the apartment. She uses red toolbox to block rats in another room. Brown’s headaches and breathing got worse when she tried sleeping in one of her bedrooms, which is filled with mold. So she and her partner sleep in the living room, which is less moldy, instead.
A recent city inspection of Brown’s apartment found the same conditions. Inspectors found 63 housing code violations. According to Brown, these problems aren’t new. She says the apartment has been wrought with hazards since soon after she moved in in 2010. If that’s the case, Brown’s landlord, Yeshiwas Egezew, violated the law when he raised the rent last year. Under a city law passed in 2016, landlords cannot raise rent on apartments with substantial housing code violations like moisture that causes mold, defective heat, or unsafe electrical wiring.
