Hailing from Northern Ireland, forty-three year old Shawn Curry has been voted one of the worst private landlords in New York.
Sporting a raft of housing code infringements, Mr Curry’s properties for rent in the Bronx are some of the worst maintained reflected by his 2nd and 4th place on a ‘name and shame’ housing report. Incredibly, one apartment for rent owned by Mr Curry racked up a huge 1048 separate violations of housing regulations, just one short of the rental apartment that reached first place.
The violations included infestations of rodents and cockroaches, lack of safety measures such as faulty or a total lack of fire alarm systems and carbon monoxide detectors along with broken flooring and lights.
He has built a large property portfolio of around 250 apartments for rent in the city after emigrating there from Belfast in 1989. He doesn’t agree with his new title of ’slum landlord’ and while he does agree that many of his apartments to rent are in a state of poor repair, he says he buys them at a cut price then improves them.
He says: “I don’t do this to be a slumlord. I do it to improve the buildings. It’s just what I do to make a living. I respect the tenants and try to make them happy. If you don’t win the hearts and minds of the people you don’t get anywhere.
“I’ve been going into the worst areas in the Bronx, cleaning up the buildings and getting the drug dealers out.”
Mr Curry says he plans to renovate all the buildings he has bought in a state of disrepair.