Slumlords . . . I Hate Those Guys

The only thing worse than a slumlord is . . . nothing because I’ve read enough Post articles by now to know that slumlords are total scum of the earth:

A notorious Queens slumlord was blasted yesterday for racking up a staggering number of violations at his filthy, rundown buildings — while he gets hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax abatements.

Nicholas Haros “very definitely is a slumlord. We don’t want slumlords in our community,” fumed City Councilman Hiram Monserrate, who represents Corona. “He is clearly showing insensitivity to his tenants, insensitivity to the city of New York.”

One of those rental tenants, Elena Nuñez, 74, showed reporters a massive hole in her Corona apartment shower stall that she says Haros has refused to fix for the past two years. She also displayed a hole in the ceiling he has ignored for three years.

“He’s bad,” Nuñez said of Haros, 58, who refused to speak to The Post at his Flushing office. “He’s not a good landlord. He doesn’t do anything.”

Other Haros tenants pointed out collapsed ceilings, peeling paint, rotted walls, vermin-ridden kitchens, wall mold and a leak that has persisted for 16 years.

City officials said Haros-controlled corporations own 81 apartment buildings in the city, mostly in Queens and The Bronx. The buildings contain 3,247 units, largely occupied by immigrants and elderly tenants whose rent totals tens of millions of dollars annually.

City inspectors have found 16,696 violations — more than five per apartment. A total of 13,548 of them are considered “hazardous,” or worse, “immediately hazardous,” officials said.

And it gets worse — Haros is sucking at the City teat:

Haros owes the city more than $411,000 in emergency repairs that it had to make on apartments because he failed to do so, and he has paid more than $303,450 in fines related to his shoddy maintenance.

But Haros continues each year to get massive amounts of city tax abatements related to affordable housing programs, and the city’s Finance Department said that situation is likely to continue without a change in the law governing such tax credits.

If he’s not careful, the phrase “Haros-controlled” might become shorthand for, say, the ninth circle of hell . . .