ktjayne:

here is the entire situation:

we (myself, my brother, and rendigo) live in a basement. we moved in in October, we had a broker who received a fee and we paid rent + deposit, all in cash, though receipts were issued. all discussions were held via email so we have some sort of paper trail. subsequent rent payments have been made by check.

today, about an hour ago, Rennie answered the door to an inspector from the NYC Building department asking to come see the place. per our landlord’s prior instructions we did not let him in as the landlord was not with him. he explained what was going on: this is an illegal apartment in the eyes of the city due to not having its own dedicated gas line, not having a proper mailbox, not having two proper exits and not having a sprinkler system. he said we would need to start moving out soon since it was unsafe and that when an inspector came back either with the landlord or with a warrant, we would need to leave immediately - we could leave our stuff there but we would have to sleep elsewhere. the inspector had a visible badge and was in uniform - he gave us a form with contact information, his name and badge number, and the complaint number.

I had called my landlord to let him know what was up when the officer arrived but was too busy calling my brother/dad/etc to answer his calls after and finally he just showed up. I explained what I’d been told, he said there was nothing to worry about etc etc things would be fine (which, frankly, I have no reason to believe), I wrote down the relevant information from the form and gave that to him, retaining the original form for myself for reference.

I have no idea when someone will be back.

my brother is getting new information now stating that we may not have to move out asap but this is from someone he works with and there’s no cited source so right now I’m still going with what the officer said unless I find a piece of actual written policy that would state otherwise.

my dad is saying not to sign anything or commit to anything until we receive official word that we have to get the hell out lest we make any hasty decisions

so uh

if anyone has any leads or knows what we can do from a legal standpoint or anything at all, either reblog or reply or e-mail me at broadsquadgo (at) gmail (preferable to asks)

yeah.