By Nathan Duke
A 64−year−old disabled woman from Bayside said she fears she will be evicted because the management company that owns her apartment building wants to turn it into a co−op.
Isabelle Mesholam, who lives at the Towers at Water’s Edge in Bayside, said that Metro Management Development Inc., which owns her building, has threatened her with a marshal’s eviction if she does not move out of her apartment. She said the management company wants to transform the property into a co−op.
Mesholam, who underwent spinal surgery in March and moves around with a walker, said she is currently confined to her home and worried she may lose it.
“They don’t care what happens to me,” she said. “I can’t be out on the street. I have nowhere to go. They hold onto my checks and say I’m not paying the rent. They deposit them late.”
A spokesman for the management company said it would not comment on Mesholam’s situation.
Metro Management, which has its headquarters in Long Island City’s Silvercup Studios, is a real estate firm that specializes in property management, sales and development. Its portfolio includes conventional cooperatives, Mitchell−Lama cooperatives, condominiums and residential rentals.
Mesholam said her lease was set to expire in the spring of 2007 and that Metro would neither renew her lease nor deposit her rent checks. In March, she said she signed an agreement to move out by the end of September, but then asked for more time after undergoing surgery earlier in the summer. But the company refused her request, she said.
She said she paid $2,175 per month for the apartment.
In the meantime, Mesholam said she has not been able to go grocery shopping on her own and has relied on her son to take her around the neighborhood.
She said she has received an eviction notice for Oct. 21. She said her attorney told her that the law was on the management company’s side in the matter.
“They’re a big corporation,” she said. “They buy up these buildings and convert them. I can’t fight back.”
Reach reporter Nathan Duke by e−mail at nduke@timesledger.com or by phone at 718−229−0300, Ext. 156.
