Tenant complaints have surged 25% this yr in comparison with final yr in New York Metropolis, as critics warned socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s twisted battle to squeeze landlords — and seize personal property — is escalating.
There have been a staggering 573,656 complaints from renters logged with 311 thus far this yr, in comparison with 459,519 filed on the identical time in 2025, a Publish evaluation of service requests throughout the 5 boroughs discovered.
The surge comes after the Mamdani administration has repeatedly inspired “ripped off” tenants to file grievances for the tiniest issues. Landlords instructed The Publish that complaints are actually being made earlier than even asking them to repair an issue.
“Town put us in a scenario the place they’re simply slowly beating us to demise and blaming us,” stated Lincoln Eccles, who owns a 15-unit constructing in Crown Heights. “The equipment of the federal government is geared to squeeze us.”
Prior to now week alone, Mamdani’s 311 military flooded Housing Preservation and Improvement, the town company that fields all tenant complaints, with 67 requires clogged bogs — a 500% improve from the identical time final yr.
“All of this tenant organizing is a part of a long run venture to take wealth away from folks and redistribute it,” stated Stu Smith, an investigative analyst with the Manhattan Institute. “They’re determining what stress factors they’ll act on to get their means.”
Complaints in Brooklyn — house to the “Commie Hall,” a stretch of closely Mamdani-supporting neighborhoods equivalent to Mattress-Stuy, Bushwick, Williamsburg and Greenpoint — are rising on the quickest tempo.
Up to now this yr, Brooklynites logged 169,675 complaints in comparison with 128,337 on the identical time final yr — 32% greater than the identical span in 2025, knowledge present.
Queens, the place the hall extends into locations equivalent to “The Individuals’s Republic of Astoria,” additionally noticed complaints rise sooner than the city-wide common, ticking up 29% year-over-year, the numbers present.
The hall has been on the coronary heart of Metropolis Corridor’s efforts to impress renters to hitch forces in opposition to landlords, who’re anathema to the communist view that non-public property needs to be collectively owned.
“Name 311,” Mamdani’s radical tenant advocate, Cea Weaver, who as soon as declared property possession a “weapon of white supremacy,” urged New Yorkers in February. “Metropolis Corridor’s door is open,” she stated, bragging that the town was going to get “daring and inventive” in an interview with In These Instances.
Weaver, who as soon as stated “should you don’t imagine within the authorities’s sacred proper to grab personal property, it’s over,” additionally boasted that HPD was beefing up its staffing.
“We’re increasing headcount to have the ability to do extra housing code inspections and extra focused enforcement,” she stated in July throughout a briefing concerning the metropolis’s “rental ripoffs” hearings.
In April, Hizzoner dressed up as an HPD inspector for a social media publish that bragged about discovering six violations, some as trivial as lacking data taped to the constructing entrance and boasted “no concern is simply too small.”
And it labored.
That week, there have been 17,768 complaints filed — up 63% from the identical week in 2025 when there have been 10,877 tenant calls. In Brooklyn, calls that week went from 3,223 in 2025 to five,499 in 2026 – a 70% improve, the info present.
“They’re calling HPD continuous day and night time,” vented property proprietor Yossi Azour, who’s going through off in opposition to the Weaver-founded Crown Heights Tenants Union at his constructing on Hawthorne Road.
“They’re enjoying the harmless sufferer and inflicting folks to lose their property and undergo.”
“It’s a catastrophe,” he added, saying that he’d by no means seen this in 30 years of proudly owning property. “That Mamdani is saying landlords are unhealthy and housing needs to be free, it offers them headwind.”
A few of the extra head-scratching complaints have included tenants calling 311 to whine about having no warmth in the summertime, and a renter griping concerning the coloration of the paint on the wall, landlords have instructed The Publish.
In Might, Mamdani unveiled his “block by block” housing plan, which elevated HPD’s funds by $2 billion.
The nonprofit NYS Tenant Bloc, which Weaver led till becoming a member of the Mamdani administration this yr, admitted taking landlords to courtroom over repairs was a part of the plan to grab housing.
“If landlords can’t preserve their buildings, tenants will,” the NYS Tenant Block bragged in June. “The Mayor’s Housing Plan directs $2.2 billion to taking housing off their palms.”
When a tenant calls 311, the grievance goes to HPD, who calls the owner. If that doesn’t resolve the difficulty, the company sends an inspector to the condominium, who can concern a violation.
If a landlord doesn’t repair an HPD violation, it stays open, giving the town company the ability to go to courtroom, and in probably the most excessive instances, when there are a number of severe, persistent building-wide violations, take steps to switch administration and possession.
This week, Mamdani introduced he was fast-tracking the courtroom course of.
“Individuals wait weeks, if not months, for a case to be heard,” he instructed reporters. “Right this moment we take a important step in the direction of ending that.”
Gotham landlords instructed The Publish tenants are abusing the grievance system to reside rent-free — and push them out.
“The tactic is to make these complaints. Make it seem to be there is no such thing as a curiosity in fixing the difficulty,” stated Eccles.
Mamdani’s controversial Workplace of Mass Engagement has even gone canvassing with the Democratic Socialists of America to encourage tenants to “band collectively” in opposition to landlords, knocking on doorways in Flatbush simply final week.
“I’ve completely seen what I might describe as a weaponization of 311 complaints,” Luis Altamiranda, Esther consulting group president, who owns properties in Washington Heights. “It existed earlier than Mamdani, but it surely’s gotten by far exponentialized since he’s taken workplace.“
“What I see lots of is you’ve tenants which have large quantity of arrears, after which they use the 311 complaints to create this kind of narrative that the owner’s not doing his job.”
“The landlords are being focused,” stated East Village landlord Christine Renzi, who owns 11 condominium buildings as soon as owned by her father. “My father was by no means focused like this. We used to get lots of respect for being a landlord.”
“I even have a tenant that feels that he doesn’t should pay his hire due to Mamdani. They really feel like they’re completely entitled to have a free trip,” she stated.
“We even had one tenant who known as me and requested why she was being charged hire. She thought that’s what the hire freeze meant,” stated Natalie Bonnano, 47, of Staten Island who, together with her sister, owns 300 properties in Brooklyn and Staten Island.
Frivolous and repeated false complaints damage tenants “with actual points,” stated Ann Korchak, board president of Small Property House owners of New York.
“A good and efficient housing enforcement system ought to make sure that property house owners are given cheap alternative to right reliable violations and weed out bogus tenant complaints. There additionally should be penalties for tenants who create the violations within the residences, or report false complaints.”
Mamdani didn’t return a request for remark.
