nothin Absentee Landlords Caught Supersizing | New Haven Independent

Absentee Landlords Caught Supersizing

Thomas Breen photo

The backyard at 68 Mechanic St.

The city found a Mechanic Street home owned by two Guilford-based landlords to be unfit for human occupancy” due to an absence of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, unpermitted and uninspected interior renovations, and the illegal conversion of a two-family dwelling into five separate rental units.

A survey of the landlords’ three other New Haven properties found that this isn’t the first time they’ve crammed more families than allowed into a residential property, and that they may be continuing with this practice of unpermitted overcrowding beyond the home on Mechanic Street.

From March 7 through March 26, inspectors from the city’s building department and the city’s anti-blight agency, Livable City Initiative (LCI), conducted three separate inspections of the two-and-a-quarter story home at 68 Mechanic St. in East Rock, according to public records.

The building is owned by Guilford-based landlords Xie Meiqiang and Ren Xiaoli. Xie and Ren also own residential properties at 480 Elm St., 48 Vernon St., and 154 Minor St.

LCI found the Mechanic Street building unfit for human occupancy” and ordered the landlords to vacate the non-compliant spaces, reduce the number of tenants from five to two, and add smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors immediately.

It’s not a lot of work,” Assistant Building Inspector James Eggart said about what he has required the landlords to do to fix up 68 Mechanic St. But what happened when it was done, it was just not done very good.”

Eggart said that Xie and Ren have been compliant thus far with the building department’s orders to fix up and reduce occupancy at 68 Mechanic St. He said that he did not know of any other red flags at other New Haven properties owned by the Guilford couple.

But a quick tour of the three properties that Xie and Ren own in the Dwight and Hill neighborhoods revealed buildings that, from the outside and according to neighbors and tenants, may be run in a similar way as the Mechanic Street home.

The front and backyards are overgrown or filled with debris. Facades are chipped and the porches and decks are sagging. There are conspicuous broken windows and wires snaking up and down all sides of the buildings.

Neighbors and tenants, asking to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said that Xie and Ren run boarding houses” with up to 6 different tenants living in properties zoned as two-family only.

They said that the landlords are not responsive to tenants’ concerns with the buildings’ conditions, and that the buildings themselves are eyesores on residential blocks otherwise populated by well-maintained owner-occupant homes.

He Mickey Mouses everything,” one tenant told the Independent about Xie’s work as a landlord. It’s hardly worth asking to fix something because it ends up worse.”

Xie said that he is working with the building department on fixing up the Mechanic Street property, and that the other properties that he and his wife own are in compliance with city code.

Xie told the Independent that he and Ren are part-time landlords, and that the only properties they own are the four in New Haven. He said that they do not make a lot of money from the properties, and do not work any other jobs.

The couple lives in Guilford in a three-bedroom home with an assessed value of $414,000, according to the public record.

68 Mechanic St.

68 Mechanic.

During a March 7 inspection of 68 Mechanic St., Assistant Building Inspector Eggart found that additional dwelling units have been constructed without the required permit and/or approvals,” according to a Notice of Violation and Order to Abate” that the department sent to Xie and Ren on March 8. The inspection found that the building, which is zoned as a two-family residence, had been illegally converted to house five individual tenants.

Furthermore,” the notice reads, no inspections have been conducted to determine safety and compliance with the Connecticut State Building Code” for these additional dwelling units. The notice orders the landlords to immediately vacate the non-compliant spaces and set up an inspection appointment with the building department.

On March 22, LCI sent a letter to the landlords indicating inspector Edward Rodriguez had found the property unfit for human occupancy.” A March 27 Housing Code Compliance Notice details the specific nature of the violations.

The notice identifies missing smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors throughout the building, and orders the landlords to install them within 24 hours.

The notice also identifies the unpermitted and illegal conversion of the two-family dwelling into five separate rental units. The notice orders the landlords to immediately reduce the occupancy of the building to fit the two-family maximum.

Eggart and Xie confirmed that the Mechanic Street home now currently houses only two tenants, and no longer five.

Eggart detailed for Xie what he needs to do to bring the two-family dwelling back into compliance with city code. He said that a hollow wooden door that is currently used as a unit entry needs to be replaced with a solid core door or a metal door; that an unpermitted kitchen needs to be removed from the first floor; and that little walls” that have been put up to break the two-family residence into five different units need to be taken down and replaced with doorways to allow for contiguous hallways and proper access to exit stairwells.

This guy, now that we moved three of his tenants out, he wants to fix it all up and do it right,” Eggart said. He’s been very proactive and wants to do” the necessary fixes.

On March 20, Xie took out a building permit to remove the unpermitted three dwelling; to remove one kitchen on the first floor; and to provide smoke detectors and egress windows per code.

We are working with James Eggart,” Xie told the Independent. He instructed me to do whatever we are supposed to do, and to bring everything into order.”

One tenant told the Independent that the problems at 68 Mechanic St. didn’t stop with the overcrowding. The tenant said that the landlords tiled over a unit’s bathroom floor to cover up mold. The tenant said that, when parts of a unit’s kitchen ceiling collapsed into the sink, the landlords put up a flimsy patch and said that the tenants on the floor above would take care of the rest of the repairs

The tenant also said that at one point in March, the carbon monoxide level in the building reached 30ppm, which led one of the tenants to call the fire department.

The furnace was broken,” Xie responded. That’s all it’s about. And I immediately installed a new furnace. Everything’s fine. The furnace and the radiator inside was broken. We installed a new one.”

LCI Deputy Director Rafael Ramos confirmed that he initially visited the property in early March at the request of the fire department after it received an after-hours call about a carbon monoxide scare. Ramos said he found three too many apartments” and places where existing smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors had been removed to make way for the haphazard conversion of the two-family home into five separate units.

Xie and Ren first purchased the 1,600 square-foot home in 2008.

Eggart said that he is waiting on the landlords to confirm that they have finished the necessary construction so that he can come by, inspect the property and make sure it is up to code. Xie said that he plans on inviting Eggart to the property later this week.

Ramos said that LCI is working with the landlord and the building department to get back into the building to confirm that the noncompliant units have been closed, and that smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors have been reinstalled.

48 Vernon St.

48 Vernon St.

One block west of the Yale Children’s Hospital on Howard Avenue in the Hill stands 48 Vernon St., a two-family, two-and-a-half story vinyl-sided home with a gap-toothed picket fence and black cables snaking up and down its façade. The second-story porch sags and a dead, branchless 50-foot tree stands high above the back parking lot.

This is the worst home on the block,” said one neighbor. The neighbor said that the rest of the homes on Vernon Street are well-kept and primarily owner-occupied, and that the block has made a significant resurgence over the course of the past decade. The one house that continues to bring the block down, said the neighbor, is 48 Vernon St.

The neighbor said that Xie and Ren run the place like a boarding house”: housing six different tenants in the two-family home.

Wires snaking up and down the facade at 48 Vernon St.

There are six names listed on the home’s mailbox. Xie maintained that the building is occupied by only three tenants, all of whom are Yale medical students.

The neighbor said that a tree fell over during one of last month’s storms and crushed a tenant’s car in the parking lot. He said that he has been warning the landlord for years about another precarious tree, but Xie refuses to take care of it.

Xie and Ren purchased the 2,700-square-foot home on Vernon Street in 2011.

154 Minor St.

154 Minor St.

The three-story concrete and cinderblock building at 154 Minor St., just across the street from Columbus House, used to be a community center run by the local elderly home Casa Otonal.

Xie and Ren purchased the building in 2013 and converted it into a three-family residence.

On Oct. 30, 2014, city building inspectors found that the landlords had illegally converted the three-family property into a six-family residence.

Without permits and inspections, Xie and Ren had built three additional bathrooms, three additional shower stalls, six gas stoves with piping from the basement, and electrical installations within the walls.

The city ordered the landlords to immediately cease occupancy of the building.

Xie said that no one lives in the property right now. Eggart said that he was not aware of any current problems at that location.

480 Elm St.

480 Elm St.

At the corner of Elm and Garden Streets in the Dwight neighborhood stands 480 Elm St., a green, two-story, two-family home owned by Ren Xiaoli. The building is faced by chipped wooden shingles, a sagging porch, and a shattered second floor window. A chipped tile path connects the rotting front steps to the backyard.

This place gets the job done,” said one tenant. Xie said that two families live in the building.

Ren purchased the 1,900 square-foot home in 2014.

A broken window at 480 Elm St.

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