Tenants Created Nuisance Through Continued Loud Arguing

Landlord sued to evict rent-controlled tenants for permitting a nuisance due to "loud and furious arguments featuring excessive profanity and abusive language" occurring on 16 specific occasions during five months in 2008, and continuing thereafter on a regular basis. The trial court ruled in 2012 that landlord had established a nuisance. But the court set the matter down for a hearing on whether it should stay issuance of an eviction warrant to give tenants a chance to reduce the level of noise to "an appropriate standard."

After the hearing held in June 2013, the court ruled for landlord based on continuing nuisance and found that tenants weren't entitled to a stay of eviction. Tenants appealed and lost. The trial court's nuisance determination was supported by testimony from multiple witnesses regarding a consistent pattern of loud tirades and arguments with profanity and other unreasonable noise produced by tenants and their four children. Witness testimony also detailed many specific instances of that conduct and the detrimental effect it had on neighbors both in the building and in a next-door building. Tenants admitted to their yelling and failed to show that they were entitled to an additional cure period.

Cantone v. Coiro: App. No. 2019-419 KC, 2020 NY Slip Op 51507(U)(App. T. 2 Dept.; 12/11/20; Aliotta, PJ, Weston, Toussaint, JJ)