There must be something in the water on this East Village block.
Just a few doors down from where an East 7th Street tenant was sued for hosting raucous pay-as-you-go sex parties in his townhouse, an apartment dweller is being accused by neighbors of having guests who shoot heroin between their toes in the lobby, have sex in the corridors — and occasionally jump out the windows.
The alleged antics of Ismael Hernandez and his pals have been unfolding at 204 E. 7th St., claims co-op owner Tomfol Owners Corp. in Manhattan Supreme Court papers seeking to evict Hernandez.
At 189 E. 7th, Avraham Adler is being sued by his landlord.
Hernandez, 67, has been in Apt. 9 since 2006, but the problems really began in January 2018.
Drunken guests of Hernandez would shout and whistle outside the building until he’d let them in; jam the front door lock; rifle through packages belonging to other residents; and left so much garbage in their wake it “required special clean up from the janitor,” Tomfol charged in court papers.
One man who came to see Hernandez shot heroin in the building, while others have smoked crack and had sex in the common areas, the co-op contends. One woman jumped from a third-floor window.
A year ago there was a “disturbance … involving a man with a baseball bat and a well-known drug dealer,” according to the lawsuit. Other Hernandez visitors have overdosed, according to the legal filing.
The bad behavior culminated in a February fire that left Hernandez’ unit uninhabitable and damaged his neighbor’s homes — in part because Hernandez, who was home, allegedly refused to let the FDNY inside to stop the flames.
In August, Hernandez’ daughter Cassandra, who he lives with now, told a co-op shareholders meeting the building was being unfair to her father, and that the fire was electrical and not his fault.
At the board meeting, one building official noted there was “video evidence of multiple issues with drug taking, loud and abusive behavior, people jumping out of the windows of the apartment in question and finishing with a fire where there were people in the unit,” according to court records.
Hernandez could not be reached.