frau kaleun |
08-06-10 10:42 AM |
Landlord Trying To Evict 97 Yr Old Veteran
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/..._his_fate.html
Quote:
An elderly World War II vet wants to wipe the decks with a controversial landlord who is trying to give him the heave-ho from his $63-a-month Sunset Park apartment.
"I will stand up and fight him now," said former merchant marine Magnus Saethre, 97, who survived a Nazi U-boat torpedo attack during the war. "I'm scared of nothing."
http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/20...lg_saethre.jpg
Born in Norway, Saethre moved into the Fourth Ave. apartment soon after the war ended in 1945 and has been anchored there ever since. Known as "Old Man Mike" in the neighborhood, Saethre doesn't leave the fourth-floor, one-bedroom apartment much anymore after he had a pin placed in a balky right knee. He also suffers slightly from dementia as well as fading vision and hearing.
"He's like a friend to everyone," said his live-in caregiver and friend Devron King, 55, who met Saethre three decades ago and thinks of him as father figure. "He's the most generous guy in the world," King said. "We take care of each other." But landlord Jack Geula took the nonagenarian and King to Brooklyn Housing Court in 2008 to evict the pair, claiming that King was nothing more than a "predator" who was going after Saethre's modest savings. Geula also charged that King was a nuisance to fellow tenants.
"I'm doing it for the [benefit] of the building's tenants," said Geula, who took control of the building in 2006 and insists that Saethre's $63.29 rent has nothing to do with efforts to force him to ship out. "It's for the courts to decide," said Geula. The judge overseeing the case has yet to rule on their fate.
"It's not a prosecution, it's a persecution," said John Hlavaty, an attorney who represents both Saethre and King.
This is not the first time Geula has been accused of trying to oust tenants paying low rents from a building he owns. In 2007, tenant advocates charged Geula tried to force out longtime low-income tenants from other buildings along Fourth Ave. through legal challenges, failing to make repairs, and not supplying heat and hot water for days at a time.
"Money. That's all he wants," said Saethre. "He should be ashamed of himself. "I'm going to stay here for the rest of my life," he vowed. "At my age, I don't see how [he] could be dumb enough to throw me out of here."
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I hope this turns out well for Mr. Saethre. Seriously, it's not like he's gonna be living there another 65 years, let him keep his cheap rent-controlled home for whatever time he's got left.
And if Ms. King is in fact only in it for the old dude's money (assuming he has any to speak of), so what? Ain't nobody else's business. According to the story they've been friends for 30 years and it doesn't appear that he's neglected, abused, or unhappy, so if she ends up getting paid in some fashion for providing care and companionship and he is satisfied with the quality of same, what's the big deal? People pay for "elder care" all the time and in some cases get precious little for their money.
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