How far would you go to get rid of an awful stench in your $5,850-a-month apartment that your landlord says doesn\u2019t exist?<\/p>\n
The answer, according to David Gobaud, is pretty far. His insistence of a lingering smell in his unit has led to an unusual legal standoff with his landlord, who has done extensive work in the apartment and says there is no such odor. Neither side is budging, turning the situation into a \u201che says it smells, he says it doesn\u2019t smell\u201d dispute.<\/p>\n
The 42-year-old tech worker has not only sued the owner in housing court, he’s purchased a set of blueprints of his building, snaked a flexible camera cable behind his kitchen cabinet like he was giving it a colonoscopy, and created a standalone website dedicated to what he describes in court documents as “a strong trash or garbage odor” that he believes is wafting into his one-bedroom apartment in a Midtown luxury high rise called The Epic.<\/p>\n
Gobaud’s unit on the 46th floor is located next to a trash compactor room and garbage chute, and he suspects that \u201cfoul-smelling\u201d fumes are coming through an electrical outlet opening in the wall behind his kitchen cabinets.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe apartment unfortunately smells like hot garbage or the subway,\u201d Gobaud told Gothamist. \u201cThere’s a draft of warm, smelly trash and mechanical air constantly entering the apartment.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the landlord says no one from his company\u2019s management team has noticed the smell after repeatedly entering the unit.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy team has been in the apartment and have not noticed any smell, as well as no resident prior to you have complained about the smell,\u201d Hal Fetner, CEO of the company Fetner Properties, wrote in a July email to Gobaud. \u201cCandidly, I am very proud of the actions my team have taken to accommodate you, and it is unfortunate that we cannot satisfy your needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The view from Gobaud’s $5,850-a-month apartment in Midtown.<\/p>\n
David Brand<\/p>\n
Gobaud\u2019s complaints trace back to move-in day in June, when he said he first noticed a strange scent in the apartment. He filed a repair request through the building\u2019s tenant portal the next day, the first of at least 10 such requests, according to court documents. He then began making complaints to the city\u2019s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and by email to the property management team and Fetner, the company CEO.<\/p>\n
In its court response, Fetner Properties \u2014 which owns the building through a related limited liability company \u2014 said it has \u201crepeatedly investigated, repaired, replaced, cleaned and otherwise accommodated the copious number of complaints\u201d Gobaud has filed since June, including patching holes in the kitchen, replacing the refrigerator and sealing gaps around the bathroom plumbing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt appears,\u201d they wrote, that Gobaud \u201cis trying to use this court to posture for a rent abatement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haberman sent Gobaud a letter last month threatening to sue him if he continued to \u201cpublicly besmirch the landlord\u2019s good name and reputation\u201d through his website.<\/p>\n
Gobaud denies the accusation that he is in it for a discount and has not removed the website. He and the landlord say he has continued to pay his rent each month.<\/p>\n
He said he has also spent hundreds of dollars to buy those structural plans from the Department of Buildings and the borescope camera that he fed behind his kitchen cabinet to get a peek at the openings in the wall, including around his microwave\u2019s electrical outlet. He also bought a digital infrared thermometer that he\u2019s used to measure the heat coming out of the wall that he shares with the garbage room.<\/p>\n
Gobaud said building staff have fulfilled most of his requests for repairs, cleaning and new appliances but he believes a smell is still coming through the electrical outlet opening in the kitchen wall.<\/p>\n
The countertop in his small, spartan kitchen is covered in building plans and packets of apartment photos, some taken using his scoping camera, that he submitted as exhibits in his court case.<\/p>\n
Fetner Properties has expressed exasperation with Gobaud\u2019s ongoing complaints. In court papers and letters to Gobaud, Fetner and its attorney have highlighted the extensive work the company has done to satisfy him and threatened to countersue him for libel based on the website he created to detail his concerns with the building.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re at a point where the landlord is just so frustrated, and you now have a tenant who’s dropping probes down areas where nobody can see and is taking temperature readings with laser thermometers and trying to make a case that there’s still a problem,\u201d Fetner\u2019s lawyer David Haberman said in an interview. \u201cThe landlord’s gone so far above and beyond that it’s enough already.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gobaud obtained architectural plans of his building showing that his kitchen shares a wall with a garbage chute and trash compactor room.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of David Gobaud<\/p>\n
The plans appear to show a riser shaft between his unit and the garbage room. He removed a light switch plate cover to show a Gothamist reporter how the air circulated from behind the wall and out of the light switch opening. He said the smell worsens in the heat, especially in the morning before he turns on the air conditioning unit mounted near his window.<\/p>\n
The problem is more than just \u201cshoddy\u201d spackle or paint jobs, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it’s just cosmetic, who cares?\u201d he said. \u201cBut when it’s so cheap there’s holes that leak in fumes, I think that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company and its attorney counter that there is no gap between the compactor room and the apartment, and that the trash chute is encased in concrete preventing odors from escaping.<\/p>\n