don
Tenants in rooms
don’t match names
on landlord’s form
BY CLARE MARIE CELANO
Staff Writer
PHOTOS BY CECILIA REYNOLDS In what Freehold officials said is a violation of municipal ordinances, two residents of an apartment on First Street make their accommodations in the attic.
Members of the Free-hold Borough Quality of Life Enforcement Team continue to cite landlords of non-owner occupied units with violations ranging from a leaky sink and broken windows to crowding nine people into a two-bedroom apartment.
As the borough’s immigrant population has increased, living conditions among that segment of the community have become a source of concern for municipal officials. The borough has started a special code enforcement team and enacted laws in an attempt to regulate the number of people living in an apartment or a house.
A News Transcript reporter accompanied Director of Code Enforcement Henry Stryker III, Code Enforcement Officer Matthew Young and Freehold Borough Special Police Officer Duane Stasse on the inspection of a borough property at 3 First St. where overcrowding was suspected.
Acting on a tip received, the team arrived at 9:30 p.m. Sept. 25 to inspect the second story apartment.
Residents of an apartment on First Street, Freehold, sleep while borough officials conduct an inspection to determine how many people are living in the apartment.
The officials announced themselves at the front door. After several minutes, a young Hispanic male in his early 20s answered the door. He stepped aside to allow the officials to enter the two-story building.
A narrow flight of steep stairs covered with worn green carpet led the group to the second floor apartment. The information officials had received suggested that more people were living in the home than those who were listed on the landlord registration form that had been filled out by landlord Michael Antuono of Hillside. The information also suggested that the apartment’s living room and attic were being used for sleeping purposes.
The landlord registration form for the apartment listed four occupants — Daniel Hernandez, 35, Julia Hernan-dez, 35, Diana Hernandez, 14, and Julia Hernandez, 10. Upon their arrival at the premises, the officials found something quite different.
In a scenario that appeared to come right out of a police show, armed police and borough officials walked through the apartment with flashlights, searching the rooms. They didn’t have to search too hard or too long to find what they suspected was there.
A visual inspection which went on for about 40 minutes revealed a total of nine adults (residents reported that 10 occupants actually lived there) in a dwelling that could not accommodate that many people.
A small bedroom at the top of the stairs was home to two young Hispanic men. One bed hugged one wall of the narrow bedroom. A small Mexican flag covered the top of a small television set lined with toiletries and personal items. A small closet revealed a few articles of clothing hanging and duffel bags on the floor.
When questioned about the sleeping arrangements, one young man told Stasse that he slept on the bed while the younger male slept on the floor with a blanket.
Moving through the close quarters of the apartment revealed a large kitchen with a small bathroom off to the side of the room. It was difficult to imagine this 27-inch-by-6-foot bathroom with a spongy tile floor, due to leaking water, a broken window and a rust-covered baseboard accommodating 10 men on a daily basis.
To the right of the kitchen, a room listed as a living room on the landlord registration form was visibly being used for sleeping purposes. Two men sat on the floor on blankets. A dresser on either side of the narrow room held clothing, the top of the furniture was lined with personal items, photos, a stereo and several trinkets.
When questioned by officials, the men revealed that they were paying Julia Hernandez $250 per month, plus an additional $10 a month for a cleaning fee, to live in the apartment. Utilities were paid as a shared expense as well, they said.
Behind the living room was a room listed on the form as a bedroom. Here lay two more young Hispanic males, ready for sleep. No beds graced this room — just blankets, a dresser, a television.
A trip down a long, narrow hallway revealed a rickety railing along the stairway. At the end of the hallway a narrow curved flight of stairs led to the attic where two more young men sat on blankets. No beds or anything even resembling a sleeping bag were here. There was no furniture and no personal belongings in this area. The men said they were told they could not have any belongings here, not even items of clothing, because that would be evidence that someone was sleeping there. The only evidence here, on this night, were three blankets on a cold attic floor and the two men who sat upon them.
The only illumination in the attic was a light hanging precariously from the ceiling attached to a long wire that traced its way back down the narrow stairway to an electric outlet in the hall.
The issue of residential overcrowding has caused numerous difficulties for municipal officials, for longtime residents and for occupants much like the 10 young men here who are willing to fork over $250 a month for a 4- by 6-foot plot of space in order to live and work in the United States.
The issue which worries Stryker the most is fire. Looking at the layout of the cramped apartment, Stryker revealed his greatest fear — having to someday remove bodies from a location like this in the event of a fire.
"If a fire broke out in that kitchen," he said, pointing to the kitchen down the hall from the attic stairway, "it would be difficult enough to rescue those in these bedrooms, but the ones in the attic, they’d never survive."
Nowhere in the apartment was there any evidence that the tenants who were listed on the landlord registration form actually reside here. There was no physical evidence of any woman, any 35-year-old man or any children. Several of the young men told Stryker that Hernandez did not live in the apartment, but did live in nearby Colts Neck.
During the inspection, Julia Hernandez came into the apartment. Police questioned her immediately, asking her where she lived and asking for some form of identification to prove her residence.
Hernandez repeatedly told the officers that she lived on the premises. She could not provide any identification to verify her assertion.
At that point, Stryker called Antuono and informed him of the inspection. Stryker said the owner seemed unaware of the occupancy situation in his apartment building. Stryker said Antuono would follow-up with him in his office to rectify the situation.
Later, Stryker said a report is being written and that the landlord and the tenant listed on the form will be cited with overcrowding violations. Stryker said he would discuss the report with Young and issue any other necessary summonses.