Bill Dispute Leaves Tenants In Dark

An alarm blared through a Cedar Hill apartment building at 1 p.m. sharp on Monday — as United Illuminating (UI) turned off the power in the common areas because of an overdue electricity bill.

Tenants union members and city, state, and federal politicians were already on site for an ​“open house” to showcase how poorly the Ocean Management complex is maintained. The sudden onset of afternoon darkness only fueled their frustration with what they alleged to be landlord malpractice.

That was the scene at 1455 State St., a 17-unit apartment building developed and owned by an affiliate of Ocean Management. 

The building is home to the city’s newest tenants union, and the fifth such renter advocacy orgaqnization to form at a local Ocean-controlled property. 

UI wound up turning the common-area electricity back on within two hours. Tenants blamed Ocean Management for the outage; Ocean’s lawyer pointed the finger at the receiver of rents for the property, which is currently the subject of a foreclosure lawsuit by a Darien-based contractor.

“It was a horrible and completely avoidable situation,” Ocean-hired attorney Gerry Giaimo told the Independent. Giaimo emphasized that Ocean Management was in contact with 1455 State’s rent receiver, Norman Goodman, to pay the bill as recently as last Friday. According to Giaimo, the holdup was on Goodman’s end. Giaimo also noted that building maintenance is the responsibility of the receiver as well. 

Reached by phone on Tuesday, Goodman told the Independent that he had received the property’s UI bill on Monday. He declined to answer any other questions about the overdue electricity bill, Monday’s temporary power outage, and tenants’ maintenance concerns regarding 1455 State.

Regardless of the power shutdown, the tenants union had planned on Monday to host the ​“Open House” to display substandard living conditions — mold growths, leaky ceilings, flooding in ground-floor units, broken windows, faulty air conditioning units. They provided the demonstration to elected officials including Mayor Justin Elicker, State Rep. Roland Lemar, and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Tenants also reported problems with pests, bugs, and mice. 

Add to that list an uneven floor, which tenants union leader Lauren Palulis said she tripped on in her unit, spraining her ankle and tearing two ligaments.

Palulis uses a leg scooter while recovering from her surgery. With the power off in the common areas — but not the renters’ individual rooms — on Monday, and the door’s automatic opening feature shut down, the building had become temporarily inaccessible to her.

“For the first year, there weren’t a ton of issues, because the building was new,” Palulis said about 1455 State. ​“Those problems haven’t revealed themselves until the past year.”

The tenants said on Monday that they were notified about the termination of electric services last week by a slip of paper from UI taped to the building’s entrance. Connecticut Tenants Union President Hannah Srajer said that UI was going to power down the whole building, but wound up only shutting off the power in the common areas. 

(Update: On Wednesday, a UI spokesperson told the Independent that, when the company’s technician first arrived at the property, the door to the house meter — which is the meter for the common areas — had a lockbox on it, ​“and no one on site knew who had the key to be able to access it.” If UI couldn’t disconnect the house meter specifically, then they would have had to cut taps to the whole building, which indeed would have resulted in outages for all the tenants. ​“Working to avoid that situation, we put the flyers up in the common areas to try to get to the bottom of the lockbox situation so that we could cut power only to the house meter rather than to the whole building. Thankfully, that was successful and we gained entry.” Contrary to what tenants told the Independent on Monday, she continued, UI did not negotiate with the tenants union, ​“and we would never ​‘want’ to power down an entire building if only the house meter was the issue.”)

According to Srajer, Ocean Management had not paid about $9,000 to UI over the past year. Now, the tenants were paying the price — literally. 

On the electricity-shutdown notice, UI clarified that the company would provide an opportunity ​“for the occupants of the building to receive service in their own names on a going forward basis, without any liability for the amount due for the time when service was billed to the lessor, owner, agent or manager.” UI wrote that tenants could deduct money owed to the company from their rent paid to the ​“landlord or his agent.” 

The tenants and elected officials present at Monday’s ​“Open House” were clear as to whom they blamed for this mess: Ocean Management owner Shmuel Aizenberg. 

According to the tenants, Aizenberg had canceled two meetings with the tenants union at 1455 State, but finally confirmed a meeting date on Monday, just before the power outage. Srajer said that ​“communication” and ​“timely repairs” are two of the group’s foremost demands.

“They’re paying a lot of money and they’re not getting any responses when they try to request particular repairs,” Srajer said. ​“It’s a real dire situation that Ocean Management needs to address.”

Side by side with the tenants union, Elicker, Blumenthal, and Lemar traversed through the apartment complex. At one point, Elicker called Aizenberg, confirming that the payment had gone through and that UI should be turning on the power in the next hour. 

In the meantime, the tour continued. 

Zaid Chaudhry, a tenant on the ground floor, pointed to inefficient AC units — that he said cost $500 in electricity bills for a faulty service. He pointed to mold in the bathroom from unaddressed leaks. Chaudhry pulled out a dust pan filled with insects and bugs that he had collected over the week. He would like to open the windows to ease the electricity bill, he said, but noted that there are no screens on his windows to protect his unit from outside pests. Palulis said none of the windows in the building have screens.

“They had promised us screens when the building opened in the fall of 2022, and those never got placed on any windows,” Palulis said. ​“That would save us a lot in terms of our electric because on nights you don’t need the AC on, you can just pop open your windows. We can’t do that because otherwise we’ll have mosquitoes in our rooms.”

In Zach Postle’s apartment’s office, a tarp hung over where a window should have been. The window had been faulty since he moved in, he said. He said he had called repeatedly for weeks to no response. Finally, when the tenants at 1455 State unionized, workers came in and ​“fixed” the window, removing it completely and placing a screen in the hole which fell out a week later, he said. Workers came back and taped a tarp over the spot, he said.

On rainy days, puddles form in the office, he said. Postle, who is a healthcare consultant, said he cannot work in the room at night.

“I essentially can’t use this [office] at night because the minute I turn on the lights, every insect ever comes,” Postle said. ​“This is directly impacting my job. I work from home and it’s nearly impossible.”

At the end of the tour, tenants, joined by Lemar, hammered signs into the grass outside the apartment complex. Some signs read: ​“When it rains, it pours in my apartment” and ​“Luxury Prices for Slumlord Conditions.”

“I’ll just say…this is an embarrassing situation,” Lemar said to the tenants union. ​“I couldn’t be more excited to see that we pulled together this union to advocate for your interests, because not only will it help here, but put more pressure on landlords particularly.”

At around 2:45 Monday afternoon, a worker with UI arrived at 1455 State to turn on the lights. At 2:54, power returned to the building.

Later in the day, Postle received confirmation that workers from the city’s housing code inspection office, the Livable City Initiative (LCI), would be inspecting the window on Tuesday to replace it. 

Regardless of who exactly is to blame for the power outage, union members at 1455 State said they’re hoping to use their meeting with Aizenberg, currently scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, to air their grievances for better living conditions.