It’s been a nightmare on East 119th Street.
The owners of a recently completed East Harlem rental building have been unable to evict a tenant they claim is violent — even though they commenced eviction proceedings in August 2024 and his lease ended on Feb. 28, 2025.
“He happily destroys our lives for two years and I can’t get a judge to remove him from this apartment,” landlord Amy Simek told The Post.
Tenant Falade Aderidigbe destroyed his 450-square-foot studio at 309 E. 119th St. by “breaking down the walls, ripping out sheet rock and destroying the bathroom,” Manhattan Supreme Court documents indicate.
The damage has cost Simek and her son Kevin about $30,000, plus $40,000 in legal fees, she said.
Aderidigbe moved into his pad in the four-story, eight-unit market-rate building on March 1, 2024, paying the $2,350-a-month rent with a NYC Human Resource Administration voucher.
“Because the [area median income] for the area met the [CityFHEPS rental assistance program] criteria, we were forced to accept a tenant who was previously in the shelter system,” Amy said.
“You walk a delicate line,” she said. “If you don’t accept a city applicant, you fall into the discrimination category. We had to go along not knowing this guy was just a horror.”
She said other problems Aderidigbe has caused include leaving his third-floor apartment with all of the burners on, aggressively banging on walls, running through the hallways naked and ranting loudly in his apartment at night for hours.
Plus, “Defendant has repeatedly sent threatening messages to Plaintiff`s employees, accusing the employees of bestiality, stealing Defendant’s mail and being drug dealers,” court documents allege. “On June 21, 2024, Defendant harassed a tenant of the building by repeatedly knocking on their door in the middle of the night, looking through the tenant`s peephole and crouching in front of the door.”
Kevin called 911 after Aderidigbe “continually texted and called me like 100s of times with explicitly nasty, sort of deranged comments,” he said. Aderibigbe was taken away by ambulance that day.
“It’s been complete stress, non-stop frustration not knowing when his next episode will be,” said Kevin, who completed the building in 2023. “I feel terrible for other tenants in the building. It hurts. I built that building.”
Cops have come and gone to no avail.
The landlords filed a termination notice on July 18, 2024. The case has wended its way through the court and finally, this May 6, a judge officially authorized Aderidigbe’s legal removal. The Simeks are “still waiting for them to schedule eviction,” Amy said.
Upstairs neighbor Miguel R., who asked for his surname to be withheld, has lived in the building on a two-year lease since January 2025.
For the first two to three months all was quiet downstairs.
Then one night Aderidigbe was speaking “really, really loud” in another language, and “throwing things,” per Miguel.
He figured Aderidigbe got into a heated discussion with someone.
But then it happened again. Come fall, Aderidigbe threw heavy objects that shook Miguel’s apartment, he said.
“I would wake up and feel my apartment shaking,” he said.
Miguel puts the onus on the city.
“I understand he’s a vulnerable person and someone has to take care of him, but I don’t think we should have to take care of him,” Miguel said.
If he doesn’t move back to Spain at the end of his lease, Miguel plans to relocate from the building.
Amy also points her finger at the city, saying Aderidigbe “didn’t do this intentionally.”
“The city takes no responsibility,” Amy said. “You take people in a homeless situation and put them in a private landlord situation and … they put the burden on us. We’re not social workers. We do this as a business. I can’t understand why they don’t help this guy. He needs so much supervision. He’s a threat to the neighbors.”
Fearing for their safety, three tenants cut their leases short or didn’t renew them, Amy said.
Kevin said the city puts mentally ill people in private residences, “washing their hands of it.”
“In a city that says they care about tenants and tenants’ rights,” he added, they allow Aderibigbe to stay put to “the detriment of everyone else.”
It’s not so easy to evict someone for being a nuisance, according to prominent real estate attorney Adam Leitman Bailey, who is not involved in this proceeding.
But the city should take some action.
“The city should stop paying the rent for the mentally ill tenant but I have never seen that happen,” Bailey said. “I have never seen the [NYC Department of Social Services] social workers involved commit a tenant either.”
The Simeks’ situation is not unique.
“Small property owners across New York City are increasingly finding themselves powerless when dealing with tenants who are destructive, threatening, severely disruptive or suffering from serious untreated mental illness,” said Ann Korchak, board president of SPONY, an advocacy and education association for small property owners in New York.
“While owners have a legal and moral obligation to maintain safe and habitable buildings, the current housing court system often leaves them with virtually no meaningful tools to protect other residents or building staff when one tenant creates dangerous conditions.”
Aderidigbe’s DSS caseworker declined to comment. A spokesperson for the agency, as well as the mayor’s office, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
