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Thanks for posting this article about the NYC apartment buildings plot.

I have long guessed that terrorists would seek to cause harm to this country via NYC apartments -- but, not by becoming tenants, rather, by becoming sham owners of NYC apartment buildings.

There are many small apartment buildings scattererd throughout the city, as well as medium and large buildings, with many owners oppressed by the city and state rent laws, and, perhaps, many who are now eager to sell.

And, while there are now many companies, nationwide, who can do an instant background check for a landlord on a potential tenant, there is no such company I am aware of that enables a tenant to do a likewise instant background check on a new landlord who may actually be a terrorist.

The city and state rent laws and court procedures seem to go out of their way to help conceal any fraud any landlord wants to committ with respect to the ownership of an apartment building.

While our law enforcement authorities may advise people to keep a look out for suspicious tenants, they would be wise to also advise tenants to find out who actually owns the building -- and has access to things like keys to the boiler room, etc.

To my knowledge, NYC does not require any superintendent or managing agent to verify the building's superintendent or managing agent is actually a legal citizen, or even has any knowledge whatsoever about performing the job being a managing agent or superintendent. Yet, these people have keys to every apartment and the basement as well as boiler rooms.

In my opinion, this situation, caused in large part by NYC's refusal to have and enforce meaningful laws that allow tenants to determine through legal means the actual identity of landlords, is a tragedy just waiting to happen.

In my own experience as a NYC tenant, any NYC landlord can tell a tenant or any city or state agency that the landlord's name is the Man on the Moon, the superintendent's name is Cream Cheese, and the management agent's name is Fraud, and their legal address is a rented mailbox at Mailboxes USA -- and, in reponse, any number of city and state officials involved in the NYC housing racket will nod their heads and say that all sounds just fine to them. No one (except powerless tenants) asks for criminal prosecution for fraud of many fake documents that can be submitted by a sham landlords to authorities. I think the reason for the failure of anyone to prosecute is because, in my opinion, many sham landlords in NYC are in fact corrupt judges, corrupt lawyers and other such people, who assumed that being sham owners themselves -- in order to evaude the IRS on the rent payments they collect, and engage in possible money laundering schemes disguised as rent payment collections -- could simply go on forever, thanks to the laws and procedures these authorities have themselves set up.

Consequently, those innocent and law-abiding NYC tenants who find themselves in buildings now or soon to be owned by new sham owners -- who are in fact terrorists -- are, to put in bluntly, sitting ducks, IMO.

to put in = to put it

Very scary -- I never thought of all that! Thankfully, my building is owned by a large, reputable corporation.

Don't be surprised if these characters end up in a gov't assisted apartment. Some landlords would rather rent to those getting housing assistance (called Section 8, I think?) because the check is more reliable when it comes from the state.

The worst part are illegal subleases.