MONTICELLO — Shanita Artson has called Sleepy Hollow Development her home for almost 14 years, but ever since Steele Properties purchased the property in late 2017 and began a months-long renovation project, her home has become her biggest frustration.

“We are in this grey area where we don't feel like we have a voice,” said Artson.

Artson along with some tenants in Sleepy Hollow Development on Terry Lane in Monticello are frustrated with the owner and management companies over renovations and incomplete work that they feel are taking too long to be remedied.

“Just because we are in subsidized housing, we shouldn't have to be treated unfairly or have to live unfairly,” added Artson.

Waiting to move

The development, built in 1970, is a Project-Based Section 8 Family property consisting of 23 buildings and 229 units.

In early November, seven tenants huddled together in one of the meeting rooms at Catholic Charities on Broadway to meet with Legal Services of the Hudson Valley. They wanted to listen and hopefully find some answers for their situation.

Artson, a mother of four, went to Catholic Charities after she was asked to move several times which caused disruption and stress on her family's life.

Masud Artson, Shanita's husband, just about had it with the new owners. “They will give you a date that you had to be out of the apartment. The date comes and goes and you just wait with everything packed,” said Masud.

“You start getting things from the boxes as you need them just to get through your day. We have jobs to go to, we have kids that need to go to school, just to be here waiting around,” added Masud.

“Then all of a sudden, they just came in one day and said ‘oh you are moving starting tomorrow' so we had to scramble to get out and the next day they are there yelling at us at the door to hurry up,” said Masud.

When the renovations began, Artson was asked first to move into a temporary unit located in the development in late May.

After consolidating all her family's belongings, Artson soon found that the unit was infested with bed bugs.

As a result, she repacked everything and moved her family's belongings to one of the many POD storage units that Monroe Group Ltd., the new management company, have placed throughout the development during the renovations. Since she could not move into another temporary unit, the management company provided a hotel room at the Best Western in Monticello.

Artson was told that it would take at least 10 days for the four-bedroom apartment to be renovated. After 20 days, Artson demanded answers since she has not heard back from the management company on the status of her unit.

Returning Home

According Artson, the Monroe Group told her that she had to leave the hotel room right away. Thinking her nightmare was over, she moved back into her old apartment in early July. Upon her return, however, she felt things were not right.

Artson stated that several things were missing when she moved back. There was no shower rod, floor molding was coming off the walls, no hot water the first night, plaster was still fresh on the walls and also dripped down her wall and then dried making hard clumps on the surface.

One night while washing dishes, Masud noticed water coming from below the sink. When he went to check out where all the water was coming from, he found all the kitchen sink pipes have come apart.

In the bathroom the floor molding is coming off and water runs behind the wall making the wall downstairs loose.

“When I am taking a shower, you can hear the water running behind the walls and you can feel the wall is wet and damp,” said Masud.

On the first floor, the new HVAC that was installed had an abnormal smell according to Masud. Upon inspection, he found sheet rock rubble and dust was caked on the outside and inside of the HVAC unit.

Additionally, when the Artson family moved back in they also found out the toilets were not connected properly and would swing to one side and leak.

“The crown molding is coming out with nails and you can see where they made holes to change the electrical wiring. The paint is coming off already, I would find my child with paint on their hands from the railing,” said Artson.

“When we moved in, we were told that we couldn't have blinds, that they [Monroe Group] would install them, we just got them recently, it's November and moved back in July,” said Masud.

Shared Concerns

Artson's neighbor, Christine Olsen, shares many of the same frustrations. These escalated one day when she came home to find the railing leading to her apartment was missing and the front was surrounded by six-foot holes in the ground encircling the foundations.

Olsen felt frustrated with how management was handling the situation. She felt compelled to call the Village Monticello's Code Enforcement office.

Soon after the Village Code Enforcement came out to inspect a temporary wood railing was installed along with orange plastic netting.

“My window was leaking even before the renovation. I was told I had to wait until the outside siding was installed,” said Olsen. “Meanwhile water keeps coming in.”

Before that, Olsen, a mother of six children, was told at last moment's notice that she had to move into one of the temporary units that she felt was riddled with problems that she felt uncomfortable living in.

Soon after she moved into that hoteling unit, sewage backed up into her bathroom and spilled onto the floor before creeping into the hallway. She called the management company and, according to Olsen, they told her nothing can be done until the next day when they have access to an apartment that was causing the overflow.

Steele Properties

In 2017, Steele Properties bought the property from Edgewater Housing Development Fund Company, Inc. Soon after, they announced that a complete renovation of all 229 apartment units will take place under the Monroe Group Ltd. management company. They said $42,000 was going to be invested in each unit.

According to Lynn Haner, Communications Manager for Steele Properties, the renovations started in the spring of this year with plans to renovate all the apartments plus extensive exterior and interior work. This includes new roofs, new HVAC systems, plumbing, and electrical upgrades, renovated kitchens and baths.

The renovation project also includes a new community building, an upgraded laundry facility as well as accessibility improvements in parking and common areas.

According to Haner, tenants whose apartments were being renovated were moved into “hoteling” units on the complex until the repairs were done. Afterward, the apartments would have to be inspected by the Village of Monticello Code Enforcement Officers before the tenant can move in.

Early during the renovation process, a number of complaints made their way to the Village Code Enforcement office. After some inspections, several Stop Work Orders were issued according to Ronald Singer, Code Enforcement Officer of the Village of Monticello.

“There were indeed serious complaints which led to Stop Work Orders,” said Singer. “We requested that a third party engineering firm monitor the projects. This firm is doing most of the construction monitoring and I am there occasionally. To date the project is moving along to our satisfaction,” said Singer.

The third party engineering is McGoey, Hauser and Edsall Consulting Engineers based out of Milford, P.A.

Earlier this year, according to Haner, an electrical fire occurred at one of the development's buildings due to old electrical wiring.

This fire has delayed some renovations and caused three families to be moved into hotel rooms off the campus because the management company's hoteling unit was full.

“We come to find out that some residents have not been calling our management offices for complaints but instead calling the Village Officials and the media for their complaints,” said Haner. “We can't help them if they don't call our office.”

According to Haner, the tenant's were given 30-day notices to comply with the renovation and if the tenant does not comply, they will be subjected to eviction proceedings.

Another major concern was the outside parking lot that is according to tenants, are riddled with potholes so much that the school bus does not want to come into the complex and according to Artson, the children have to go to meet the bus on the busy Forestburgh Road.

According to Haner, the parking spaces are being paved but were delayed at one point due to the weather issues.

According to Haner, the management company have learned a lot since acquiring Sleepy Hollow. It is now standard that they visit the tenants before any major renovations happen to explain all their choices.

“We didn't do that there [Sleepy Hollow]. We are going to do a better job with communicating with the residents,” said Haner. “I just think there's a lot of confusion and they are not understanding how the process works, and they reach out to other people before speaking to us.”