It all started on a soggy Sunday afternoon in June 2017 \u2014 and has since grown into a rather crappy ordeal.<\/p>\n
Gary Paul was sitting on the toilet in his Upper West Side studio co-op apartment reading the paper when he claims he noticed brown dirt oozing down his bathroom mirrors. Looking up, he said he saw the crown molding splitting. Then came the sound: water rushing inside the walls, running down the pipes.<\/p>\n
Stemming from a hose dis-attached from the toilet in the unit above, he said the damage quickly spread to his first-floor kitchen, flooded the hallway outside with an inch of water, and eventually seeped into the basement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s all far from flushed away.<\/p>\n
What followed was a messy, fingers-pointed-every-way legal battle at 108 W. 87th St. It\u2019s nine years later and the fight is still ongoing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe co-op let the water run for over 18 hours after being notified, as it was a Sunday afternoon, and they thought they\u2019d get to it the next day, with a certain amount of careless lack of duty,\u201d Paul claimed to The Post. \u201cThousands of gallons poured over my apartment from when it was discovered until mid-day the next day when management arrived, with keys, and a few hours later when a plumber arrived to arrest the flow of water.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Frustrated, Paul \u2014 a design consultant with a Harvard graduate degree \u2014 stopped paying his then-$581-a-month maintenance fee and filed a $650,000 lawsuit (later upped to $750,000 upon amending the complaint) in damages alone against the co-op, the building management, the maintenance company (which was subsequently dismissed) and his upstairs neighbors, \u201cbecause they didn\u2019t give me the money for the insurance and they weren\u2019t remediating the mold,\u201d he claimed.<\/p>\n
Ever since, Paul \u2014 who no longer owns the apartment \u2014 has bounced from rental to rental.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe case is worth over a million dollars at this point because of the legal fees and diminished fair rental value and [there\u2019s] property damage because there\u2019s a lot of personal property that was damaged too, ultimately,\u201d\u00a0Paul\u2019s attorney Ian Brandt claimed to The Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Among the alleged destruction: hand-printed Morris & Co. foyer wallpaper, which Paul told The Post would cost $13,000 in 2017 to replace. In addition, court records detail allegedly damaged contents, like a Christopher Dresser-designed claret jug from the 19th century, which would cost $2,340 to replace in 2017 figures.<\/p>\n
As for alleged structural damage, beyond the split crown molding, Paul added water pooled around the electrical panel \u2014 and then inside of it.<\/p>\n
The situation went from litigating a $50,000 to $80,000 repair, Brandt said, to between $700,000 or $800,000 in damages today.<\/p>\n
The co-op, however, tells a completely different story.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been a nightmare for us,\u201d co-op president Michael Laba, who claimed Paul has held a bitter grudge ever since he was voted off the board nearly two decades ago, told The Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Laba, who isn\u2019t named in the suit, added that management responded appropriately, but Paul, 72, refused to let anyone into his apartment to dry it out, claiming he had severe dust allergies. Laba alleges Paul was actually hoping mold would grow, and ripped out his own stove, tub and drywall just to claim the apartment was destroyed, he told The Post.<\/p>\n
The building eventually re-outfitted the unit, but Paul filed a barrage of complaints with city agencies over things like missing smoke detectors, a defective electric panel and unfinished work, complaints \u2014 which city records show led to a handful of violations \u2014 that Laba told The Post were unfair.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI filed a complaint for all these things because I was trying to get them to take action to help get the apartment fixed,\u201d said Paul, who referred to himself as \u201ca stickler to rules.\u201d \u201cWhether they did it or I did it, they refused to move forward on the remediation so I could build the apartment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ironically, Paul was on the other side of a mold issue in the building when he was president of the co-op board.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After discovering mold while renovating her apartment in February 2005, a shareholder sued the building etc. in 2006 for failing to \u201ccomplete the removal of sheetrock from areas of the premises affected or potentially affected by mold,\u201d among other issues, per court documents.<\/p>\n
In eerily similar details to Paul\u2019s case, court documents say about the old case: \u201cIn opposition, the respondents allege that they properly removed all sheetrock, conducted a visual inspection for the presence of mold and returned to conduct air testing. The respondents further allege that petitioner failed to grant them access necessary to complete the work required under the stipulation, which they are ready and willing to complete.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the latter years of his time at 108 W. 87th St. the co-op found Paul to be \u201cincessantly combative,\u201d according to co-op meeting minutes from Feb. 23, 2018. Paul had emailed Cornerstone Management Systems\u2019 Michelle Greenspan, the managing agent, \u201cno less than 290 times\u201d in what she described as \u201cconsistently adversarial\u201d messages, the minutes indicate. Earlier minutes \u2014 from the Nov. 21, 2017 meeting \u2014 referred to Paul as a \u201cconstantly-disgruntled shareholder.\u201d Greenspan, who is not personally a defendant in the lawsuit, declined to comment.<\/p>\n
Paul was voted off the co-op board, and as a result Laba alleges Paul \u201cwas extremely bitter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat happened 18 years ago. He\u2019s been looking for reasons to sue us,\u201d claimed Laba, who\u2019s been board president for 18 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a vendetta,\u201d Brandt responded. \u201cIt\u2019s someone who\u2019s angry that they lost their home and since 2017 weren\u2019t able to live in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul acquired the 400-square-foot apartment in the late 1980s for $100,000, he said \u2014 a figure that\u2019s roughly $300,000 today \u2014 and spent nearly 20 years on the board.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like a little English hotel room,\u201d Paul said. \u201cI traveled a fair amount, and, for me, it was incredibly affordable. I had places to go for the summers, so I was out of the city quite a bit, and for me it worked.\u201d<\/p>\n
The board countersued Paul for unpaid maintenance, and settled by buying the apartment from him for roughly $400,000 in 2025.<\/p>\n
When asked for comment, Janet Amidigi, one of the owners of No. 2A that Paul sued \u2014 the unit located directly above \u2014 said the insurance carrier was handling the issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Attorney William N. Candiloros, unit 2A\u2019s insurance defense attorney, said of the saga: \u201cIt\u2019s all rather silly because it stems from a simple water leak.\u201d<\/p>\n
The management company\u2019s attorney didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The next court date is slated for Aug. 19.<\/p>\n