Thar the Movie Mogul Blows! Thar the Landlord Breaches!

You will no doubt be impressed to learn that Yours Truly (actually, the plight of Yours Truly) is the subject of the latest "Ask Real Estate" feature in the New York Times. Before going further, it would probably be simplest and less redundant to first read the Times column, and especially the reader comments so far, and most especially the top-rated reader comment, plus a follow-up, from "Sardonickyblog."  

Cartoon Version of Me (credit Nadia Pillon, NY Times)

To synopsize: besides fighting for a then-scarce dose of the Covid vaccine, I have also recently been doing battle with the management of my apartment building. This is something of a proxy, or two-front, battle also involving what is known locally as "Hollywood East," which invaded our small bucolic complex late last month without so much as a by-your-leave, in order to make a Major Motion Picture.

Called "The Whale," the film is about a gay guy trapped in his apartment because grief over the death of his partner has caused him to eat himself up to a morbidly obese 600 pounds. For a script seemingly devoted to checking several identity politics boxes, you'd think they'd at least be woke enough to find a title that isn't quite so insulting to the differently-weighted.

Then again, the actual play upon which the script is based was written during those insensitive, dark-ages coma years that plagued the country for centuries

If you've read my Times comment, you'll appreciate the black humor of a movie about a 600-pound guy trapped in his apartment actually resulting in real-life people, like my daughter and me, becoming trapped in our apartments.

You'll also appreciate the arch hilarity of a multimillion-dollar production posting "off-limits" signs on tables laden with Doritos and other salty and sugary processed snacks at various spots around the complex during the film shoot. I never did find out whether this forbidden junk food bonanza was supposed to be catering for the crew, or whether it was props for the 600-pound lead character. (I looked out my window in vain for Brendan Fraser in a fat suit, but since his character is housebound, he was perhaps stuck in his apartment on the interior sound stage several miles south of the outdoor location scenes.)

Zoom In to See the Neon Pink Off-Limits Sign (photos by Kat Garcia)

 My letter to the New York Times, meanwhile, was edited to omit the part where I questioned my landlord's breach of tenants' rights to the "quiet enjoyment" of our digs, known as the implied warranty of habitability. As a matter of fact, the only sources Ronda Kaysen quoted were from the movie industry. There was not one landlord-tenant attorney or tenant advocacy expert in the bunch. 

Then again, this is the Sunday New York Times real estate section. It is usually replete with stuff like how hard it is to score an apartment on the Upper West Side for under two million bucks, and myriad other housing agonies of the rich and well-connected.

 So I was pretty surprised that they ran my own letter. It was probably the Hollywood angle. We are so immersed in an unhealthy celebrity culture in this country, that sometimes overwrought #Oscars So White stories actually seem to compete with the continuing mass social murder of Black and Brown people who are sickening and dying in such unconscionable disproportionate numbers during the Covid pandemic.

Anyway, the gist of the Times's advice to me was to suck it up while still being a "squeaky wheel." Since movie production companies are so flush with cash, insider experts said, I should have just shaken them down for a cut of the action. This did not happen, mainly because a few days before shooting began, before the giant crane blocked my view, before our front door was blocked by a cameraman, before blinding klieg lights flooded our living room past midnight, a very personable location manager had flat-out lied to my daughter about where they would be on the property, assuring her we would not be inconvenienced.

Besides, I don't think it was my place or my job to schmooze or cajole the movie crew, since the owner(s) of the apartment building are the ones who signed the location contract and pocketed probably thousands of dollars, without even consulting or reimbursing us, the tenants who pay the rent. When I twice asked the off-site property management company for a rent abatement, they simply ignored me. Maybe I would go away!

In fact, as the passive-aggressive mass "notification" email to tenants from 360 Property Management makes all too abundantly clear, there would be no compensation for renters. In fact, we should feel as blessed and excited as they do about "our community" being in a movie. And why wouldn't they be excited, since they double-dipped, collecting full rent from the tenants while they pocketed a hefty location fee from the producers? This is on top of a 25 percent rent increase imposed by the landlord in the last two years. Gentrification has been further exacerbated this past year by wealthy pandemic refugees from New York City either renting or buying at hugely inflated prices the already-limited housing stock in this upstate locale.  The extraction of maximum value from property certainly exceeds the rights of mere mortals. This feudalistic mindset certainly restores the term "landlord" to its original meaning!

So for me, this was the straw that broke the camel's back:

 Good afternoon everyone!   

I know that many of you have heard that there will be a film crew on site in the upcoming week.   

Please see the attached Letter from the production crew of the feature film The Whale. 

We appreciate your understanding during the dates of March 23-26th as they film.  

The most significant impact will be on the day of March 25th when they are asking that you move your vehicles from the South paved lot to any of the other visitor spaces or on the north side of the building.  The crew will have a couple of vehicles on site that are period appropriate for the time period during which the story takes place. ( I believe the 1980's ) 

For your information,  we are also sharing the film crew covid protocols.    

It's exciting that our home community will be in a feature film .... thank you for your understanding!  

<WH_Residents Letter Bella Terra.pdf>

<the whale new a24 health and safety protocols v7 012921.pdf>

So right now I'm tilting at the joint windmills of Entertainment Finance Capital and the reincarnation of Old Man Trump. This is despite Plutarch warning two centuries ago that "what thing whatsoever besides cometh within the chaos of this monster's mouth, be it beast, bird, or stone, down it goes all incontinently that foul great swallow of his, and perisheth in the bottomless gulf of his paunch."

So call me crazy or call me Ishmael for all I care, but on Monday I gathered all the pertinent documents and ignored emails to management that I could find, and filed a probably very quixotic complaint with the New York state attorney general's office.  I am not a lawyer, so I don't know whether I have a case for landlord harassment, fraud, breach of contract, constructive eviction, unlawful imprisonment, all of the above, or none of the above.

But complaining sure feels a whole lot better than helplessly blubbering.