Grab some continental breakfast and wake the Germans in the next bunk: the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement has begun cracking down on a law that went into effect on May 1 that bars apartment rentals for less than 30 days and prevents building owners from renting a single unit for temporary use.
Fifteen illegal hotels have been shut down in Manhattan and Brooklyn, including the May 3rd raid on the Lafayette International in Bed-Stuy that reportedly had more than 40 people staying in a three-bedroom home. A full vacate order was issued and guests were left to fend for themselves. The mayor's office also released a video over the weekend of one raid:
Given that just this weekend a fire at an illegal boarding house in Brooklyn caused by an the errant use of a hot plate resulted in two deaths, it's probably for the best that hostels with "inadequate sprinkler and fire systems and obstruction of fire escapes" are shut down. Mayor Bloomberg blasted those owners who "put profits above safety," but as one such owner told the Times, "We provide jobs; we collect revenue; we pay our hotel occupant tax…and we bring people to the city." The Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement, rather than the Department of Buildings, handles the enforcement of illegal hotels.
There are still plenty of legally operating hostels available in the city, and developers like Toshi are still trying to work the kinks out of the furnished apartment-hotel model that has never ceased to anger the actual tenants of their buildings. Apartment swapping and couchsurfing are both better alternatives to taking chances in a crowded deathtrap. We'd still like to see this sort of crackdown from the Mayor on that other problem that's the scourge of hotels and apartments alike.
