$3,000 Rent, No Privacy: Tenants ‘Imprisoned’ Living with Strangers and Facing Unresponsive Landlord

Tenants who are dropping thousands of dollars each month in rent are being forced to share their building with drug-addled intruders.

The terrified renters can’t leave their homes without fearing who is waiting for them in the hallways – and their landlord isn’t helping.

The residents who live in New York City are shelling out around $3,200 for cramped one-bedroom apartments in Manhattan’s Midtown neighborhood.

It’s prime real estate for its location, but because of the building’s proximity to the tourist trap Times Square, disturbing characters have been wandering the halls.

The New York City Police Department revealed that one person was killed near the apartment complex on West 49th Street and that several have been arrested for trespassing.

Tenants claim the situation has gotten so bad that cops don’t even respond to their calls anymore.

“It’s living in prison,” resident Jason Burke told Gothamist.

“People are doing their drugs in the hall, standing in your way, looking at you like they are going to beat you up.”

Renters have reported declining conditions that could lure invaders, including missing locks and windows and poor buzzers.

Despite paying top dollars for the rooms, the building’s management company, Nieuw Amsterdam Management, hasn’t been cracking down on security.

The U.S. Sun contacted the company for updates on the situation but has yet to hear back.

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Burke has been living in the building for eight years but said the squatter crisis ramped up around 2023.

Now, he and other tenants have a growing collection of disturbing images capturing drug-addled people passed out in the hallways and blood or feces-spattered walls with dirty syringes littering the floor.

Burke, who is a 55-year-old investor, said the apparently homeless people will bring food in the hallways to eat, throw it around, and then pass out for the night.

Another tenant in the building Zhanique Phyall, 26, said that a homeless person tried to cook in a vacant unit above her and started a fire.

Ever since the incident, she’s started working from home full-time because she’s scared someone will start camping out when she’s gone.

Unique Walker, who lives in a nearby building, said her sadness over the nightmarish situation has turned to rage.

She said that in December, she came home to find an unkempt man in her apartment and sleeping on her living room floor.

“We made eye contact. I said, ‘Listen, just get out. Just get out,'” she said.

“I’m done crying. I’m done shedding tears.”

After Walter complained to her landlord about the incident, they drilled screws above her windows so that no one could open them.

The District Attorney’s Office and the police department have both said they will help crack down on the horror, but that building management is ultimately in the hands of the landlord.

Deputy Inspector Robert Gault said, “Building owners have a responsibility to operate a safe building.

“We’re going to be bringing various agencies and holding them to account with some of these issues.”

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