There Are Bad Landlord-Tenant Disputes and Then There Are Execrable Ones!

Last Wednesday, Oct. 21, on the third floor of the low-rent Long Island City offices of Vantage Properties, Neil Rubler’s affordable-housing empire, one of his property managers received an interesting call. A gentleman who had signed a lease for an apartment and was scheduled to move in this month wanted out.

Mr. Rubler belongs by marriage to the esteemed Olnick clan, whose Lenox Terrace houses Congressman Rangel’s famous rent-controlled apartments, as well as Governor Paterson, Mr. Paterson’s dad, Basil, and former Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton. Mr. Rubler is himself landlord to about 40,000 New Yorkers, and big companies have rules: Lease breakers have to forfeit their security deposit and one month’s rent.

Informed of the policy, this particular tenant threatened the following: Absent the voiding of his lease obligations, he would personally leave another kind of voiding in Vantage’s elevator on a daily basis.

The Vantage employees conferred, and deemed the threat preposterous.

Two days later, the tenant made his way to the Long Island City offices bounded by mechanics, a pollo vivo shop and the elevated N/W line, and repeated his demands in person. Bickering ensued. And then the tenant repaired to the bathroom.

A few minutes later, he returned and deposited a small cloth bag on the receptionist’s desk. The receptionist opened it. Inside was a plastic bag. Inside the plastic bag was a pile of, well, shit.

It remains unclear whether the tenant’s unusual negotiating tactics worked; Mr. Rubler declined to comment for this story. But his firm did file a police report. According to the NYPD, no charges were filed and the case has since been closed.