Mayor Eric Adams and about two dozen other elected officials are facing a barrage of bogus short-term rental complaints filed against the properties they live in, records from the Department of Buildings show.
A Gothamist review of DOB complaints made through 311 found nearly identical claims against the home addresses of Adams, Comptroller Brad Lander, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and about half the City Council during a six-week span this summer. The complaints targeted lawmakers in every borough, as well as pretty much every type of housing — from co-op buildings and single-family homes to multifamily properties they own and rent to tenants with yearlong leases. There was even a complaint against at least one apartment complex where a councilmember rents a unit.
Adams, Lander and 17 other elected officials who responded to questions from Gothamist called the allegations false, with several saying they want to find out who is making the claims — and why.
“We certainly want to know who or what organization is filing these fraudulent complaints,” said Bronx Councilmember Eric Dinowitz, whose co-op building was the subject of a complaint on July 8. “Fraudulent complaints are wasting the city’s resources or taxpayer dollars.”
State and local laws prohibit New Yorkers from renting entire houses and apartments for fewer than 30 days, with the city enforcing new restrictions on short-term rental platforms, like Airbnb and Vrbo, this week. The DOB refers complaints to the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement, which investigates them.
Both agencies said they could not access or reveal any identifying information about the complainants in each case, and declined to share information about their ongoing investigations. William Reda, a spokesperson for the city’s 311 office, also said his agency cannot provide confidential complainant information.
Gothamist submitted a Freedom of Information Law request for the information last month but has not yet received a response.
Still, a review of publicly available records reveals some patterns in the complaints made between June 6 and July 19.
Gothamist examined DOB complaints for the home addresses of every councilmember and citywide elected official in New York and found that many of the claims — including those against Brooklyn homes of Adams and Lander — were reported to 311 in rapid succession, with their complaint numbers appearing sequentially in the DOB database. Several others were filed on the same day, regardless of the lawmakers’ location or political leanings.
Many of those same councilmembers’ homes were later hit with illegal conversion complaints — altering a building to fit more housing units — just days after the short-term rental claims were filed.
“This couldn’t be a coincidence,” said housing advocate Ben Carlos Thypin, who first noticed the pattern of complaints against a number of lawmakers. “The question is, in whose interests is it to execute this illegal rental complaint campaign against elected officials?”
Thypin said he began looking at the building records after Gothamist reported on over 20 claims against Councilmember Vickie Paladino’s property, including a short-term rental allegation made in June.
He and councilmembers interviewed for this story said there could be a range of possible culprits. Is it a bitter host angry about losing their short-term rental income with the city cracking down on platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo? Is it a political operative trying to highlight the dire consequences of a staffing shortage at the agency tasked with enforcing new restrictions? Or is it some other chaos agent with a knack for searching property records and some free time on their hands?
“It is clear that someone is targeting councilmembers by weaponizing the Dept. of Buildings in furtherance of some unknown political objective,” said Councilmember James Gennaro in an emailed statement.
Gennaro’s home in Queens was hit with a complaint on June 20, immediately after identical claims filed against the homes of Paladino and fellow Queens Councilmember Sandra Ung.
The complaints against Adams’ and Lander’s properties also bear consecutive numbers in the DOB database. After an elevator complaint against a Flatbush high-rise, the very next complaints target the addresses of Councilmembers Crystal Hudson and Darlene Mealy on June 15.
Adams’ spokesperson Jonah Allon called the anonymous claim “categorically false,” while Hudson and Chloe Chik, a spokesperson for Lander, also said their complaints were bogus. Mealy, who is subject to three different illegal hotel complaints, did not respond to emails seeking comment.
Properties owned by Mealy and Councilmembers Mercedes Narcisse and Justin Brannan, who also represent Brooklyn, also faced a similar blitz of consecutive complaints on June 16.
The mysterious short-term rental complaints are now emerging as a political issue in the hotly contested race for a Brooklyn Council seat held by Brannan, a Democrat attempting to fend off his colleague, Councilmember Ari Kagan, in a redrawn district. Kagan, a longtime Democrat, switched his party affiliation to Republican ahead of the election.
Kagan’s Brooklyn home was the subject of an illegal short-term rental claim on July 19.
He blamed Brannan in a post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, last month, accusing Brannan’s campaign of engaging in “dirty tricks” while posting a screenshot of the complaint. Kagan did not respond to phone messages or emails.
But Brannan called Kagan’s claim ridiculous given the “clear pattern” of false accusations against local lawmakers of all stripes on the eve of the new short-term rental laws taking effect.
“No matter who is behind it, weaponizing 311 is wrong,” Brannan said. “Abusing the system is not just a waste of taxpayer money, it’s harassment.”
New York City has around 40,000 Airbnb listings, with about a quarter booked on a regular basis. Local lawmakers estimate that around 10,000 short-term listings are illegal under city laws that bar the rental of full apartments for under 30 days. A Gothamist analysis of Airbnb listings showed Bed-Stuy had the highest concentration of illegal short-term rentals in the city.
Supporters of the new requirements — including many of the councilmembers whose homes were targeted by the illegal hotel complaints — argue that such listings reduce the number of apartments available to New Yorkers and say that implementation of the rules could add thousands of apartments to the rental market during a serious housing shortage.
Airbnb Global Policy Director Theo Yedinsky said the city’s “new short-term rental rules are a blow to its tourism economy and the thousands of New Yorkers and small businesses in the outer boroughs who rely on home sharing and tourism dollars to help make ends meet.”
Airbnb said it had no knowledge of the complaints against lawmakers. Vrbo not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Illegal short-term rental complaints rose significantly over the first eight months of the year, already surpassing the total from all of 2022, city records show. That volume threatens to overwhelm an understaffed agency tasked with handling them, Gothamist previously reported.
Whatever the case, the complaints against elected officials reveal no clear ideological bias. They’ve targeted the homes of lawmakers across the political spectrum, from Paladino, a conservative Republican from Queens, to Councilmember Charles Barron, a socialist Democrat from Brooklyn, whose homes received complaints on back-to-back days. There were also complaints about the co-op building of Councilmember Carlina Rivera, who sponsored the anti-Airbnb legislation, and the single-family home of Councilmember Joe Borelli, who voted against it.
Councilmember Gale Brewer, who represents Manhattan and used to run a bed and breakfast, was also the subject of a complaint on June 16. She said she has not had short-term guests in more than 15 years. Williams, the public advocate who was the subject of a complaint on June 6, has two long-term tenants but no short-term listings, according to his spokesperson Kevin Fagan.
Queens Councilmember Julie Won, a renter, said she lives in her apartment full time and wasn’t aware the building was hit with a complaint on July 16. “You’d have to call my landlord,” she said.
And Borelli, the owner of a single-family detached home, shared surveillance camera footage of the inspectors on his front porch responding to a complaint they received on June 30.
He said a DOB inspector told him they had noticed the pattern of short-term rental complaints against city councilmembers.
Borelli said he wants to revive legislation that would allow city agencies to punish people who use 311 to harass New Yorkers or undermine the work of strained city agencies.
“People realize they can play games with 311,” Borelli said. “They made four cars schlep out to Staten Island.”
