Talk about the steal of the century.
One man pays $55.01 a month for his rent-controlled apartment at 5 Spring Street in SoHo (seen above). Thomas Lombardi, who is in his 70s, has been getting over in the same apartment that he grew up in since his family migrated from Italy in the '40s. He lives with his "much younger girlfriend," who will inherit the place after he dies. Game recognize game.
That right there is wild, but Lombardi's neighbor only pays $71.23 per month. Tom Combs, a retired military meteorologist and published poet, has resided in his apartment since 1967. His landlord has been trying (to no avail) to evict him since January for "maintaining [the apartment] in an extremely poor and unhygienic condition."
Neither Combs nor Lombardi's rents can be increased while Combs and Lombardi—or their relatives—own it because their landlord never filed the necessary paperwork. That means those rents will be dirt cheap for a long time, while their landlord continues to lose money.
[via Gothamist]
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