LCI Arrives For Court-Ordered Inspection

Javier Ortiz leaned over and picked up a triangular shard of cracked ceramic tile from the bathroom floor of a second-story Vernon Street apartment.

The city housing code inspector now had two questions to ask.

First: Does this condition present any immediate danger to those living in the apartment?

The answer, at least for Ortiz, was clearly yes.

“You can get cut” on these edges. The apartment’s renters include young children. ​“They’re in jeopardy” with the floor the way it is now. The loose and sharp bathroom tiles would have to be replaced, and they’d have to be replaced soon.

Second: Who’s to blame for this bathroom hazard, the apartment’s landlord or its tenants?

The answer to that question was less clear — and may ultimately be left for a state judge to decide.

Ortiz was one of three city employees — along with Livable City Initiative (LCI) Deputy Director Mark Stroud and Assistant Corporation Counsel Michael Pinto — to visit a three-family house at 23 Vernon St. Friday morning for a court-ordered housing code inspection. 

They were there to prod smoke detectors and shine flashlights at holes in walls and test their hands against kitchen cabinet doors and their feet against loose bathroom tiles to see if a rental property owned by an affiliate of local landlord Matthew Harp is in compliance with the city’s housing code — and, therefore, is safe for tenants to keep living in. Harp’s real estate company Renaissance Management and its affiliates own and run publicly subsidized low-income apartments across the city.

The city inspection came 10 days after state Superior Court Judge Walter Spader, Jr. ordered LCI to return to the Hill apartment building to conduct an up-to-date inspection as part of a housing code enforcement action filed by tenant Lakeysha Harrison and New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) attorney Amy Marx.

That tenant-launched lawsuit seeks to compel Harp’s company to address a host of alleged problems with the second-floor Vernon Street apartment, including a rodent infestation, holes in the walls, and faulty or inoperable doors and windows and sinks, among other concerns. Harp’s company has denied the entirety of Harrison’s housing-code-violation claims, and has filed a counterclaim arguing that the tenant has failed to keep her apartment clean, safe, and garbage-free.

Click here to read a previous article about the case, as well as about a court hearing that focused less on substantive housing-code issues and more on uncertainty around LCI’s recordkeeping and past inspections for that same property.

City employees Ortiz, Stroud, and Pinto weren’t the only ones to show up for Friday’s inspection. 

Also in attendance were Harp, his attorney Tucker McWeeny, and one of his company’s maintenance workers, Rick, as well as legal aid lawyers Amy Marx and Richard Hine. 

The latter two are representing second-floor tenant Lakeysha Harrison, who was also at home on Friday along with three of Harrison’s children.

First Stop, First Floor

The city inspection crew started their work soon after 9:30 a.m. Their first stop wasn’t Harrison’s second-floor apartment, but rather a separate first-floor apartment occupied by a different family of renters originally from Puerto Rico.

Those tenants — who asked not to be named or photographed for this article — said they’ve been living in the apartment for two years after moving to the Hill from. It’s ​“all good” here, said the family’s high-school student daughter.

Harp encouraged this reporter to take photographs of the downstairs rental as an an example of ​“a tenant that doesn’t trash” their apartment. 

He would repeat that assertion several times over the course of the day’s inspection: that is, that any problems with Harrison’s second-floor unit had more to do with the tenant than the landlord, and that the downstairs rental showed that his company’s property is in good condition when occupied by tenants who care for it. 

Harp also brought up an argument that he and McWeeny raised in court earlier this month: that LCI’s initial housing-code-compliance order from January 2022 identified the code-failed apartment as on the first floor of 23 Vernon St., not the second. Marx and Harrison have argued that that was a ​“scrivener’s error” by LCI, and that the official order and subsequent failed inspections clearly applied to Harrison’s second-floor apartment.

Marx took issue with Harp’s claims that Harrison is simply an irresponsible tenant.

“The conditions problems in the apartment can not be fairly blamed on the tenant,” she said in a followup email comment Frday. ​“Certainly, tenants cause wear and tear but such wear and tear must be addressed through regular upkeep. Responsible property owners know that regular wear and tear spirals into serious conditions issues when the landlord fills the unit with low quality materials and does not do regular upkeep.

So. What kind of wear and tear did the inspectors and lawyers find when they walked up to Harrison’s apartment?

Upstairs In Apt. 2

They found a hole in the living room wall beneath the TV stand, as well as what Marx and Ortiz described as mouse droppings, and a missing threshold from the entry to one of the bathrooms.

Harrison said that that hole predated her moving into the apartment; Harp consistently said over the course of the inspection that the apartment was in good condition when Harrison moved in, and that she signed a piece of paper attesting as much.

They also found that two of the stovetop burners were indeed out, that a kitchen shelf door was missing and that one of the shelves was sagging. Ortiz pointed to all of the grease around the stovetops; he and Stroud said it’s possible that that is a tenant-caused problem.

Pinto and Marx stood side by side as they checked through a two-dozen-long list of concerns that Marx and her client had with the property’s upkeep. Ortiz responded to each concern as to whether or not it had been fixed or remained, and Pinto put an ​“X” next to each persistent problem.

“Holes in bedroom walls,” Marx read.

“Not fixed,” Ortiz replied.

“Rodent infestation,” Marx said. Ortiz said he hadn’t noticed any sign of rodents, until Marx pointed to what appeared to be mouse droppings on the living room floor. ​“X,” Ortiz replied, indicating that the problem remained.

“Bathroom door broken?” Marx asked.

“That’s an X,” Ortiz replied.

A ​“freefalling window” in the bathroom?

“X,”

“Loose and missing outlet covers?”

“X.”

“Two stoves are not working,” added Stroud, ​“but that could be the tenant.”

Bathroom Trouble

The biggest and most urgent problem that Ortiz and Stroud found while inside Harrison’s apartment on Friday concerned the bathroom.

That’s where Ortiz found ​“cracked tiles” and a ​“subfloor” that need to be replaced, as well as a loose toilet, a loose vanity, and a window that didn’t open properly. 

Looking at the cracked tiles and old, loose adhesive failing to keep them together, Ortiz asked himself that two-pronged question of does this present a danger and who’s at fault.

The floor condition was clearly a problem, Ortiz said, because of the sharp tiles. ​“It’s a cutting hazard.” He added: ​“I would say the subfloor has been compromised.”

He couldn’t say whether or not the damage was due to ​“overspill” from the shower and bathtub by the tenant or poor maintenance by the landlord. But he could recognize a problem when he saw it.

After touring the remainder of the apartment and checking out the basement, Ortiz and Pinto and Stroud huddled by the front of the house as they decided what to do next.

They then returned to Harp and McSweeny to deliver the news. Pinto said LCI would be putting together an official inspection report, as required by the court, identifying everything it found.

He informed landlord that LCI would issue an order to fix the bathroom tiles by 7 p.m. Friday as they presented a ​“cutting hazard.”

“We are going to issue an order for immediate correction” of that issue, and Ortiz planned to reinspect that evening.

Harp told the city attorney and inspectors no.

He said that he was entitled to 24 hours to fix that problem. Given that it was 11:20 a.m. Friday, that meant he had until 11:20 a.m. Saturday until his company would be ​“out of compliance with the order.”

Pinto pursed his lips, a bit taken aback by Harp’s response. He re-huddled with Ortiz and Stroud, and then Harp and Stroud spoke one on one.

Back together as a group, Pinto said LCI would be sticking with its 7 p.m. Friday deadline for fixing the bathroom tiles. If that issue isn’t remedied by Friday night, he said, the city would then have to ​“make a determination of condemnation or relocation, if necessary.”

“That’s fine,” Harp replied.

After the two-hour inspection was over, the Independent asked Ortiz for his big-picture take on the morning’s work.

He said that his goal this morning, and on all inspections, is to identify ​“what’s immediately dangerous and addressing immediate harms.” ​“Everything else,” he said, LCI can ​“allow time” for landlords to fix.

“I want to be able to sleep well tonight knowing this family” is safe where they’re living, he said.