Swedish emulation of Brooklyn now extends to shady landlord tactics

What do we know about Sweden? We know that they love love love Brooklyn. They do picklebacks because we do them! They have their own Brooklyn Brewery plant! They have a bar named for us! It’s all very adorable how much the Brooklyn spirit has infected Sweden. The newest cute tribute to Brooklyn coming out of Sweden? Gothamist shares the story of an imported Swedish property manager refusing to make repairs for rent regulated tenants in their new Crown Heights apartment acquisition. Just like corrupt Brooklyn landlords!

Those irascible, Net hat-wearing Swedes are learning from our absolute worst examples in pursuit of profit before anything else, ignoring complaints from longtime tenants in an attempt to run them out of the building. If Swedish real estate company Akelius Residential Property, who paid $44 million for 805 St. Marks Avenue in Crown Heights, hasn’t quite reached the levels of Joel and Aaron Israel yet, well, just give them some time to get used to their new surroundings. Why just listen to the complaints from residents in rent regulated and stabilized units in the building:

Meanwhile, longtime regulated and stabilized tenants throughout the 200-unit building have waited months for their new management company to address ceiling leaks in bathrooms and kitchens; two tenants have been without refrigerators for over a month; and another says black sludge bubbled into his bathtub in September and wasn’t fixed for over a week.

Gothamist also points out that most of the 900 units Akelius owns in New York City are rent regulated, but we’re sure they bought those units out of the goodness of their socialized democratic hearts and not because they’re betting on “a major influx of white-collar tenants.“

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