PHOTOS: Jared Kushner's Williamsburg Tenants Say He 'Hurts Families'

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN — The tenants of a luxury residential building in Williamsburg owned by Jared Kushner's real estate company made a dent in the local news yesterday with a video recording of a rat repeatedly crawling across a baby's crib in their building. The tenants group, Austin Nichols House Concerned Tenants, told Patch that the rat was just one of several ongoing issues they've been having with management as vacant apartments are converted by construction workers.

"Condo conversions do not have to be undertaken in a way that hurts families; yet Kushner's approach at Austin Nichols House has done and continues to do exactly that," the group alleged on its website, where it lays out the details of what it calls a string of "intimidation tactics" employed for a year by Kushner and his company in their building, at 184 Kent Ave. in prime Williamsburg.

Kushner, who is married to President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka, is one of Trump's primary advisers in the White House. He also owns millions of dollars worth of luxury Brooklyn real estate through his real estate corporation, Kushner Companies. Kushner announced in January he would be stepping down as CEO of Kushner Companies to comply with federal law in his new role of senior White House adviser to Trump. However Kushner has not officially announced that he divested his stake specifically in 184 Kent Ave. A request for comment to Kushner Companies was not immediately returned.

Westminster Management, the company that manages Austin Nichols House, is a subsidiary of Kushner Companies.

Here's a list of all the ongoing problems Kushner's tenants at 184 Kent Ave. in Williamsburg alleged to Patch they have been dealing with in their building for months:

"Crisis of Confidence" in Security

Because around 220 out of 339 apartments in the Austin Nichols Houses are vacant, doors are often left propped open overnight, permitting anyone to enter the building without passing by the front desk, a spokesperson for the Austin Nichols House Concerned Tenants group told Patch.

"There are constantly unknown people — related to the construction, management says — roaming our halls."

A concierge who was hired to be at the front desk 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to tenants, was recorded on video sleeping:

According to the tenants group, it has gone through several doormen because "allegedly, their company doesn't pay them consistently," the spokesperson told Patch.

"To say there's a crisis of confidence in the security apparatus around here would be an understatement," the spokesperson said.

There is no video surveillance in the building, although tenants said management promised to install it nine months ago, according to the spokesperson. "Why would a developer building apartments that are going for $1-2 million apiece not want to have video surveillance to reassure the current residents of building security?"

'Shady' Contractors

Tenants believe Kushner has avoided installing video surveillance because he doesn't want evidence of "shady" practices going on on camera, the spokesperson told Patch. The first example the spokesperson brought was allegedly undocumented immigrants working for DSA Builders, the contractor working on renovating the vacant apartments. The spokesperson said they didn't have a problem with undocumented workers, but rather the idea that undocumented workers were helping Kushner profit when his political stance was severely anti-immigrant, they told Patch.

"The question for Jared is this," said one resident, who preferred to remain unnamed due to fear of retribution. "How do you — if the media reporting is accurate — orchestrate a political campaign resulting in the greatest upset in American politics in a generation or more, and on a platform that at least partially thrives upon the idea that this country can't be 'great again' with all of the undocumented people we have living and working here, then turn a blind eye when those some people are the ones working their fingers to the bone to line your pockets with ever more wealth?"

Patch's request for comment to DSA Builders about their citizenship vetting process for workers was not immediately returned.

Construction Safety Hazards

The tenants also complain of construction violations and resulting health hazards, such as electric wiring and plumbing allegedly exposed for days or even weeks, they said. Dust, debris and piles of garbage are left out in the hallway and in neighboring vacant apartments, tenants say. The building has garnered eight violations with the Department of Buildings since Kushner bought it in February 2015. Five of the violations are still active. Four of them are about elevator safety.

Then there were the six fires that occurred in the six weeks between May to July 2016. Rumors flew among tenants during the time of the fires that Westminster Management had deliberately set the fires for insurance money or to get current tenants to abandon their legally protected leases out of fear. A lawyer for the management company sent out a letter to tenants on July 9 saying "an obviously sick individual" set the fires on purpose. It's still unknown how the fires were started.

"We've been trying to get management to be reasonable with us for a year," the group spokesperson said.

"Life in a construction zone disrupts life entirely, and when an unscrupulous landlord like Kushner consistently toes ethical and legal lines throughout that process, the effect is far more serious than mere annoyances and inconveniences," the group wrote on its website. "Kushner uses bureaucracy, public profile, and a trapeze act between permissible and impermissible behavior to create the perfect storm of insidious harassment the likes of which most people simply cannot withstand. These are, individually and collectively, intimidation tactics."

A request for comment to Westminster Management was not immediately returned.

The tenants have detailed all further incidents on their website.

Photos by Austin Nichols House Concerned Tenants