After the hardships that I had gone through with landlords at the two previous spaces Meraki was in, I thought that moving into a space owned by RUPCO would finally allow me to breath, focus on my business, and let my guard down. When I was still communicating with people at RUPCO, After a few email exchanges – one with Jess Nagy, the other with Jake Michaels (both of whom were awesome) – I remember feeling really…happy. I felt proud of myself and what I was building.

I felt like the people at RUPCO would work with me no matter what situation may have come up, that they whole heartedly wanted to see me succeed, and that I finally had honest landlords who gave a shit about their tenants. I truly believed that I would be with them for a long time and that they would be there for me and with me – because that’s what they said. I was excited for the future and looking forward to building a long and robust professional relationship with RUPCO. For the first time in as long as I could remember I had hope for my life – because of RUPCO and it’s employees. I felt like I had hit the landlord jackpot. I didn’t feel like they were just my landlords, I felt like they were, in a way, partnering with me to ensure that I did well.

I worked with Jake from the beginning; we communicated regularly. He was awesome at his job, and he cared. He set a precedent, as did the other employees I communicated with. That precedent was one of “we will work with you, we want you to succeed, we’re here for you.” Nothing about my communications with Jake, Jess, or Sheila – the COO – led me to believe that I would ever be treated the way that I was. I often wonder if things would have been different if Jake was still working for RUPCO when all of this happened, and I’ve thought about reaching out to him. When he left, which was very shortly after I moved in, everything changed. Communication became more difficult, and the person who I was handed off to – Tasyka DeRosalia – had zero concern for me or my small business. Her goal was to skirt responsibility for everything, consequences be damned. In my opinion, someone like that doesn’t belong working as a property manager at a nonprofit housing organization. She copied me in an email that I was not meant to see, and that was what opened my eyes about what and who I was really dealing with.

I communicated regularly with RUPCO about anything and everything that I felt was necessary to communicate with them about, mostly rent. Since I had moved into the space right as the shutdown occurred, there was an element of the unknown that went beyond normal business ownership. I knew that it was important that I maintain an open dialogue about what might come next; I only had 12 open business days I was shutdown, and I had a $1300 security deposit bounce 4 days in. I didn’t have months of rent saved – I had barely been open before being forced to close, and the security deposit bouncing created a financial snowball effect; if only I knew the blizzard that was ahead.

RUPCO ended up being the most dishonest, and treated me worse than any of the other landlords in Saugerties – and that’s saying a lot. They are the most dishonest people I have ever done business with, period.

Some of their offenses include:

• Constructive eviction
• Criminal trespassing
• Landlord retaliation
• Gross negligence
• Multiple breaches of lease and breach of warranty of habitability
• Retaliatory eviction (in violation of state law)
• Harassment
• Denial of due process
• Judicial misconduct
• Attorney misconduct
• Failure of a nonprofit to act in accordance with it’s public obligations
• Fraudulent or negligent misrepresentation
• Oh…and tax evasion