Court Bans Tenant's Disruptive Visitor from Building

Landlord sued tenant, seeking to stop tenant and his frequent guest from creating a nuisance in its apartment building. In December 2020, the court granted landlord's request for a preliminary injunction requiring tenant to grant landlord access to his apartment so that its workers could inspect and repair a water leak. The court also ordered tenant to refrain from assaulting, harassing, menacing, recklessly endangering, intimidating, and threatening building staff, tenants, and occupants, and directing tenant to comply with the building's rules requiring that occupants wear face masks. Later, landlord went back to court, claiming that tenant had violated the court's order, and asked the court to hold tenant in contempt.

The court held a hearing, and testimony by tenants, a former tenant, and building staff showed that, in March 2021, tenant's guest nearly hit another tenant and an elderly woman while riding his bicycle in front of the building, then threw his bike, nearly hitting the tenant's dog, and then followed the tenant into the building while shouting obscenities and slurs. In October 2021, the tenant's guest aggressively approached a handyman while holding his bike and then throwing it down and hitting the handyman with a light saber while threatening to kill him and cursing at him. Tenant's guest also rode his bicycle on many occasions in the building lobby, endangering the safety of tenants, their guests, and building staff. As to tenant, testimony showed that he allowed unreasonable noise to emanate from his apartment and continued to let his guest visit the apartment after he became aware of the guest's troubling behavior. 

The court found that the guest, but not tenant, was in civil contempt of the court's December 2020 order and enjoined him from entering the building. The court found that tenant had violated his lease provision prohibiting objectionable conduct. Landlord was likely to succeed on its claim for a declaration that tenant violated his lease by allowing unreasonable noise to emanate from his apartment, causing or permitting unsanitary and unsafe conditions in his apartment, and continuing to have his guest over even after he became aware of his troubling behavior. So the court issued a preliminary injunction against tenant, enjoining tenant from creating, maintaining, allowing, suffering, or permitting loud noise to emanate from his apartment and permitting conditions in his apartment that posed an unreasonable risk to his health, safety, or welfare and to that of other tenants, staff, and occupants of the building.  

400 West 59th St. Partners LLC v. Oyolesi: Index No. 157420/2020, 2021 NY Slip Op 32618(U)(Sup. Ct. NY; 12/8/21; Goetz, J)