Thomas Breen photo
View St. tenant John Barbiero: Woke up one day with new landlord, workers on the roof, and eviction notice on the door.
A local investor-landlord has moved to evict everyone who lives in a Cedar Hill three-family house — including a 76-year-old Air Force veteran — less than a month after buying the property as part of a $1 million package deal.
The landlord is Shneor Edelkopf.
According to the city’s land records database, on Oct. 10, Edelkopf’s company C & S Realty 2 LLC paid $1 million to Lawrence Rohinsky to buy the three-family house at 232 View St., the three-family house at 63 Lombard St., the three-family house at 180 Goffe Terrace, and the two-family house at 356 Howard Ave.
Instead of introducing himself to his new tenants and telling them where to send the rent, Edelkopf promptly moved to fix the View Street house’s aging roof — and then to evict everyone living under that roof.
His company served three separate “notices to quit” on Oct. 26 to the tenants in the first‑, second‑, and third-floor apartments.
Those notices to quit told the View Street renters — including a 76-year-old Air Force veteran named James Moore who has lived in his third-floor apartment for two decades, and a 33-year-old certified nursing assistant (CNA) named John Barbiero who has lived in his second-floor apartment since 2019 — that they had to move out by Nov. 1.
They were not behind on rent. But their month-to-month leases had expired. The new owner chose not to renew them.
According to the state court database, landlord-hired attorney Eliana Schachter then filed three separate lapse-of-time eviction lawsuits on Nov. 3 on behalf of Edelkopf’s company. Each lawsuit asks the court to kick out each View Street apartment’s tenants on the grounds that their oral month-to-month leases have expired, and they therefore must move out due to “lapse of time.” (Click here, here and here to read the public files in each eviction case)
On Nov. 5, a local contractor called Bh construction LLC pulled a city building permit to replace the View Street building’s roof shingles and plywood sheathing.
All of which led Barbiero to wake up one morning earlier this month to the sound of unexpected contractors pounding on the roof above his head, and then to find unexpected eviction notices taped to his house’s front door.
232 View St. (right) with the roof repair crew's dumpster still blocking the driveway.
Contributed photo
Eviction notices taped to 232 View St. door earlier this month.
“One day I’m paying my rent. I’m going to work. I’m taking care of elderly people with love and compassion,” Barbiero told the Independent during an interview in his second-floor apartment as his roommate’s cats, Sol and Luna, pawed across the living room floor. “And then I wake up and there’s a dumpster blocking the driveway, workers on the roof, and an eviction notice on the door.”
He and Moore both said that the new landlord did not reach out to them at all between buying the house and hiring a marshal to tape those notices on the View Street house’s front door.
“It was like a punch in the stomach. I never expected this,” Moore said through a stammer as he carefully lifted himself up two flights of steep stairs to the third-floor apartment he has called home for the past two decades.
Moore told this reporter that he was able to get housing relocation help from the Veterans Administration (VA) in West Haven. He plans to move into an apartment elsewhere in New Haven soon.
Barbiero is less confident that he’ll be able to find an affordable place to live as quickly as his upstairs neighbor has.
If he gets evicted from his View Street apartment, Barbiero said, “I would live in my car. I’ve done it before.”
It’s not fun or easy and is especially daunting given the onset of winter, he said.
He makes only $18 an hour, he said. He doesn’t have any family financial support to lean on. He has looked at dozens of other New Haven apartments over the past year with the hope of moving out but hasn’t found one in his price range, he said. So he’s having trouble coming up with a safer alternative.
Barbiero said he would love to have had an opportunity to negotiate with the new View Street landlord, to try strike a deal that would let him stay in his apartment.
He recognized that he and his relatively new roommate are getting a very good deal for their current two-bedroom rental. “I know $775 is cheap, but it’s expensive for me,” he said. He argued the rent was commensurate to just how rundown the property was under the previous landlord’s ownership. He said he struggled to pay even that much during a year and a half without a roommate and with unstable working hours.
Barbiero said he’s been unable to get in touch with the property’s new owner. He said he heard the name of his new landlord for the first time on Wednesday, from this reporter.
Barbiero and Moore both said that their previous landlord, Rohinsky, called them to let them know he’d sold the house and to say that he’d pass along the tenants’ contact information to the new owner.
The two tenants said the only notice they got from their new landlord — and still the only communication they’ve ever received from him — is the eviction notices that were taped to the house’s front door.
“No one told me they were gonna gut” the house and redo the roof, Barbiero said. “No one told me their intent was to evict” everyone in the building.
He’d like to negotiate, but “I’m just talking to a wall.”
Barbiero recalled how “embarrassing” it felt to walk downstairs and find, to his surprise, eviction notices taped to the door. “I didn’t know what was happening. They kept me completely in the dark.”
On Thursday, Moore filed an appearance in his eviction case with the help of the Connecticut Veterans Legal Center.
In an answer to the eviction complaint, Moore indicated that all his rent has been paid, and wrote: “I have lived in this apartment for more than 20 years. The plaintiff allegedly bought the property in October and is evicting me because the lease has ended. I seek 6 months to move.”
Property Manager: "They Can Call The Lawyer"
Thomas Breen photo
232 View St.
Looking down from the 2nd floor on the inside front stairwell at 232 View St.
What does Edelkopf have to say about why his company moved to kick everyone out after buying the View Street house?
Nothing, as of yet.
Edelkopf — who has grown his real estate business in recent years into one of the busiest flippers in New Haven poverty housing — did not return phone call and text message and email requests for comment by the publication time of this article.
Edelkopf’s brother, Mendy, did return this reporter’s phone call earlier this week.
Mendy runs his own local real estate business. He has long been an active buyer and manager of low-income New Haven rentals.
He also signed CARES Act compliance affidavits on behalf of his brother’s company in each of the 232 View St. eviction cases. The forms identify Mendy as the site’s property manager. He’s also listed on the secretary of the state’s business registry as the agent for C & S Realty 2 LLC, which is the holding company run by his brother and that owns 232 View St.
Mendy told this reporter he doesn’t know anything about the underlying circumstances between the tenants and new landlord at 232 View St. besides the fact that the new landlord told him that none of the tenants had leases and therefore all of them should be evicted.
Why not negotiate with the tenants before moving to kick them out? Why not get in touch and give them a chance to find a way to stay in apartments they’ve lived in for years?
“We told the tenants to be in touch with our attorney,” Mendy replied. “If the tenants want to” try to negotiate with the landlord, “they should talk to the attorney. They can call the lawyer.”
Isn’t that what you would do in such a situation? Edelkopf asked this reporter.
This reporter called and left a voicemail message for the landlord’s attorney, Eliana Schachter, and emailed the landlord’s firm at the address included in the View Street eviction papers — [email protected] — seeking comment for this article.
As of the publication time of this article, the attorney had not responded.
Legal Aid: "These Are People's Homes"
Thomas Breen file photo
NHLAA Director of Litigation Shelley White.
New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) Director of Litigation Shelley White, who is representing Barbiero in this eviction case and who represented him in a previous eviction case filed by his former View Street landlord, said that what the tenants at 232 View St. are currently facing has become all too common in New Haven’s investor-laden rental market.
“We’ve been seeing it now for at least a year, as corporate landlords scarf up these properties,” make some repairs, and then look to rent the apartments at higher rates.
“The properties for them are an investment. I’m sure they feel they are improving the quality of the housing in these areas,” she said. But these investor-landlords pay too little attention to the fact that “these are people’s homes. Many of them are people who may have lived there for years.”
White said that Barbiero was able to resolve his previous eviction case with his former landlord amicably. The old landlord sold the property to Edelkopf’s company. And then the new landlord filed for a lapse-of-time eviction almost immediately.
“He gets nothing,” no notice or heads up or hello from the new landlord, White said. “He just gets a notice to quit. It is absolutely terrifying.”
Asked about Mendy Edelkopf’s recommendation that the eviction-facing tenants just call the landlord’s attorney, White said, “It’s hard for us to reach the landlord attorneys. They have a high-volume business and they’re in court pretty much most days.”
She said that many eviction cases end up in default because tenants don’t know what to do once they’re served with an eviction notice, they don’t know how or are not able to get in touch with the landlord or the landlord’s attorney, and then they lose the case.
And she pointed out the irony that investor landlords who file these prompt evictions often own the most properties in the city. They could in theory reach out to a tenant at a newly bought property and try to find a way for that tenant to move into a different building while their old home gets renovated. Instead, this landlord didn’t provide any heads up — and just started evicting.
“The bottom line is: It may be legal, I’m not suggesting anybody has done anything illegal. But it’s the difference between property as an asset, as a commodity, and the fact that these are people’s homes,” White said. “These are human beings. These are people’s homes.”
Looking, But Not Finding, Affordable Housing
The roof repair dumpster, as viewed from Barbiero's second floor apartment.
Looking north on View Street.
The Independent’s spoke Wednesday morning with Barbiero before he drove off to visit a patient in Derby. He emphasized how difficult it is for working people without deep savings or family connections or much of a safety net to find an affordable place to live.
“I don’t make a ton of money,” he said about his $18-an-hour CNA job. While he has two patients to look after now and is working 38 hours a week, work at times can be “very spotty.”
He said he looked intensively for a new place to live after his previous landlord filed an eviction lawsuit against him. But everywhere he turned, he said, the landlords would ask for someone to co-sign on the lease, or they’d ask if he makes $1,000 per week, or they’d scrutinize his lack of credit.
Ideally, he said, he’d like to find an apartment for under $1,000 per month.
“Even that is a stretch.” He couldn’t find anything in that range.
He also said he had tried to get an annual lease, not just the month-to-month oral lease, from his previous View Street landlord, but was never successful. He said he would love if possible to get an annual lease for his View Street apartment under the new owner.
Barbiero said that the best case scenario for him right now is that he be able to “work with the new landlord” to “see if I can continue to stay here, and maybe I can afford the rent.” The second best case would be to “find affordable housing and have a landlord take a chance on me.”
Born and raised in Milford, he moved to New Haven when he was 19, he said. “I love New Haven so much. I love the people. I love the art community. I love the small businesses.” But increasingly, he just can’t afford to live here.
Other recent stories about New Haven eviction cases working their way through housing court so far in 2022.
• Eviction Deal Drops $1 Ruling Appeal
• Judge’s $1 Award Tests Eviction Rule
• Court Case Q: Which“Nuisances” Merit Eviction?
• “Or” Evictions OK’d
• Fair Rent: Dog’ll Cost You $150
• Rent Trumps Repairs In Elliot Street Eviction
• Though Sympathetic, Judge Blocks Eviction
• Family Feuds Fill Eviction Court
• Rent Help Winds Down. What’s Next?
• Eviction Withdrawn After Rent Catch-up
• Hill Landlord Prevails In“Lapse” Eviction
• Landlord Thwarted 2nd Time On Eviction
• Church Evicting Parishioner
• Hard-Luck Tenant Hustles To Stay Put
• Eviction Of Hospitalized Tenant, 74, Upheld
• Judge Pauses Eviction Amid Rent-Relief Qs
• Amid Rise In“Lapse-of-Time” Evictions, Tenant Wins 3‑Month Stay
• Leaky Ceiling, Rent Dispute Spark Eviction Case
Is the new landlord going to do a gut renovation with new plumbing and electric? Is so, these evictions are understandable, as you can’t do that level of a rehab with tenants in the unit.
If the gut rehab isn’t happening, the evictions are pretty unconscionable, particularly of the 76yr old tenant who has been there forever.
It’s pretty disgusting that the new owners wouldn’t at least call or stop by to deliver the bad news in person. Maybe they just served the tenants because the property is in bad shape. If the tenants called in the property inspectors in advance of the evictions, they could have been interpreted as retaliatory.