New Landlord To Tenants: Hello. Goodbye

The new landlord of a leak-damaged downtown apartment complex has told the building’s unionized renters that their leases won’t be renewed — leaving some scrambling to figure out where they’ll live next as soon as this summer.

That’s the latest turn in a months-long, multi-landlord saga at the Emerson Apartments at 284 Orange St.

On June 7, a company controlled by Edgewood-based landlord Michael Hayes purchased the 18-unit apartment building for $2.7 million from a company affiliated with Trinity Lutheran Church, which sits right next to the Emerson Apartments. 

Within a week of the property changing hands, Emerson’s tenants received notices signed only by ​“Property Management” that were posted to their doors — and, later, emailed to them — advising them of an upcoming ​“inconvenience.”

“We are writing to inform you that due to significant work that needs to be carried out on the property, your current lease at 284 Orange Street, New Haven CT, 06510 will not be renewed upon its expiration,” that letter, dated June 13, reads.

“We understand that this may come as an inconvenience, and we want to offer you some flexibility during this transition period. You have the option to vacate the property at any time before your lease end date without any penalties.”

The letter goes on to ask those who decide to stay through the end of their leases to continue to make their ​“regular monthly use and occupancy payments,” or rent, and to let management know of their plans ​“at your earliest convenience so that we can make the necessary arrangements to assist you during this time.”

The letter is signed: ​“Sincerely, Property Management,” and includes a phone number, office address, and email address. 

Emerson renters Raymond Hinds, Stephanie Perez, Alex Kolokotronis, and Jim Blau told the Independent that this non-lease-renewal notice caught them all off guard.

Hinds, who has lived with Perez in a second-floor apartment at the Emerson for the past three years, said he was at work last Friday when a neighbor texted him and other tenants pictures of the notices on their doors. 

“It’s scary,” Perez said about the prospect of moving. ​“What’s going to happen when we all move out of here?” Will she and Hinds be able to find another apartment nearby they can afford? Will the rents be jacked up at 284 Orange for the building’s new tenants?

She said that their lease doesn’t run out until May 31 of next year, so they’re not in any immediate rush. But still, they’ve loved living at the Emerson — they love its architecture and its history, their neighbors and the building’s location.

“It was pretty heartbreaking,” Hinds said. 

“What’s going on,” added Perez, ​“it’s not right.”

Hinds and Perez lamented the spotty communication they’ve received from the new property management company since the building was sold less than two weeks ago. They said one of the first emails they got from the new company was an allegation that they still owed June rent and that late fees would start piling up within a day, given that the email was sent out right before the 10th of the month.

Hinds and Perez were perplexed. They had already paid rent, to the previous church-affiliated landlord. Why were they being asked to pay twice? So they reached out to the new management company, and subsequently got an email correcting the previous.

“Please disregard the earlier rent due notice as the software had auto generated it as your information is being uploaded,” that email read.

Great, Hinds told the Independent during a recent interview. ​“You guys are auto-generating threats to me. Awesome.”

The building’s new landlord and property management company, meanwhile, did not respond to multiple requests for comment by the publication time of this article. 

This reporter also swung by the property management company’s listed address, on the 19th floor of the Connecticut Financial Center at 157 Church St., to try to talk with someone in person. That single floor lists dozens of businesses as having office space there. 

A secretary at the 19th floor’s front desk said that the property management company in question — Freeman & Co — indeed rents office space there, but seldom has anyone physically present in the building. Instead, that office is used mostly for tenants to drop off rent checks.

Another Emerson tenant, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Nour, said that she’s lived at the Orange Street apartment building for nearly four years.

She said she found out about the non-renewal notices via a group chat she has with her neighbors in the building. She was inside of her apartment at the time, saw the chat, opened her apartment door, and found the unsigned ​“Property Management” letter taped on the front. She later received an emailed copy.

She said she felt ​“devastated” upon hearing the news that her lease won’t be renewed — because her current lease runs out July 31.

“I’m in a bit of a time crunch right now to figure out alternative housing,” she said. She works at the hospital as a physician’s assistant, and will be traveling for most of July. Now she’s going to have to balance work and travel with frantically trying to find a new place to live — all by August.

“It just doesn’t seem realistic or reasonable to tell people they have six weeks to pack up half a decade of their life and find a new place to live.”

She contacted the unnamed property management representative on Monday, asking for an extension so that she can live month to month in her current apartment. She said she considered that a reasonable request given that some Emerson tenants have leases that run through next spring, so the building will still be occupied even if she’s forced to move out at the end of her own lease.

Ten hours later, she got an email response.

“We are reaching out to inform you that we are currently in the process of gathering and uploading data into our system,” that unsigned email read, ​“which has caused a delay in addressing your inquiry. However, rest assured that we have already forwarded your request to the upper management for their attention and consideration.”

Nour said she’s holding out hope that the landlord will let her keep living at the Emerson past July 31. ​“I don’t know what my options are” if not. ​“I love this building so much.” 

She also lamented the impersonal communication of the new management. Like Hinds, she said she also received an automated email incorrectly saying she still owed June’s rent. She said she’s asked several times for at least the name of the person she’s talking to at the property management company. She still has yet to receive an answer.

“It feels like they are not treating us as human beings,” she said.

Locked Out

Kolokotronis and Blau have lived in their own Emerson apartments for six and 12 years, respectively. Both have spent the past several months displaced from their homes and living out of hotels — Kolokotronis in Southington, Blau on Long Wharf.

That’s because a flood in February wrecked both of their apartments’ bathrooms. The previous church-affiliated landlord never completed repairs to the still-uninhabitable rental units. The city then condemned both of their apartments on the grounds that they present ​“a serious hazard to the health and safety of the occupant.” Kolokotronis and Blau subsequently formed the Emerson Tenants Union and led protests outside the Orange Street apartment building, and were hit with pre-eviction notices (but never actually full-blown eviction lawsuits) by the former landlord, and filed retaliation complaints still waiting to be heard by the Fair Rent Commission. 

Blau’s lease at the Emerson runs out on July 31, Kolokotronis’s early next year. Kolokotronis said that six other tenants at the Emerson also have leases that run out at the end of July, making this issue of non-renewals a much more pressing matter.

Both tenants union leaders saw non-lease-renewal notices posted to their neighbors’ doors and heard from fellow tenants that everyone in the building had received such a communication. But they themselves didn’t receive the print notice or an email letting them know about the new landlord’s decision.

Instead, Kolokotronis returned on Sunday to his Emerson apartment — where he still has a host of belongings, including clothes and books and papers that he hasn’t brought to the Southington hotel — and, to his surprise, found his key no longer worked in his door’s lock.

Apparently, Kolokotronis said, new management has changed the locks of his apartment door. So he called the police to report an illegal lockout; he said that the police called his property management company, and a representative from that company reportedly said that all Koloktronis had to do was reach out to them in order to get back in to his condemned apartment. As of Tuesday, Kolokotronis told the Independent, he’s still locked out of his Emerson rental unit.

“This has all been so depressing,” he said.

All four renters hypothesized that it is not a coincidence that the new landlord issued these non-lease-renewal letters so promptly to a building that has recently formed a tenants union. This is ​“union busting,” Hinds said. Plain and simple.