A pair of “hateful” squatters who lived in a Queens home rent-free for nearly four years finally left — but not before trashing the unit and filling it with dangerous and disgusting booby traps.
They left raw meat in a trash bag and an unplugged fridge full of uncooked salmon, leaving the place reeking of rotting food, landlord Vanie Mangal said.
The rogue renters also bashed in the kitchen sink, and ripped out circuit breakers from the electric box and a new thermostat from the wall, she claimed.
But the coup de grace was a nail allegedly inserted into a ratty couch cushion that could have seriously injured Mangal, 33, or anyone who tried to sit on the sofa in the two-story home on 115th Street in South Ozone Park.
“It comes down to them just being hateful people,” the frustrated owner said of alleged deadbeat tenants Rosanna Busgith and Philip Garnett, who left Jan. 17, just a day before a city marshal was set to boot them.
“You would think that they would feel some type of remorse … but no, they would do things like this just to try to hurt us.”
In addition to being out at least $48,800 in unpaid rent, per court papers, Mangal, who works as an emergency room physician assistant, estimated the repairs will take months and cost thousands.
“It’s bittersweet. They’re out, but also it’s not the end,” she said.
Mangal’s housing horror story began in October 2019, when her 72-year-old mother, Ahutey Mangal, rented the first-floor unit to Busgith and Garnett for $1,600 a month.
But when COVID struck in March 2020 and pandemic-era protections, including the federal eviction moratorium, kicked in, the couple paid just $800 — then nothing after, according to court records.
Mangal took them to Queens housing court that December.
Mangal said she took on a second job working at COVID clinics to make up for the lost rent.
“I was literally supporting myself, I was helping my mom and I was supporting this freeloading family,” she said.
This isn’t the first housing headache caused by the couple.
In June 2019, another Queens landlord attempted to evict the pair from a South Richmond Hill home and collect five months’ rent totaling $4,500, court records show.
Despite the city’s housing crisis, Mangal’s years-long legal saga to kick out the miscreants has killed any desire to rent her property again, as has housing activists’ push for tenant-friendly legislation like “Good Cause” eviction protections.
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“I feel bad that there’s all these people out there that want a place to live or need a place to live, but I can’t trust anybody,” she said. “And I can’t trust that the law is going to be on my side if this were to happen again.”
Garnett insisted that he and Busgith left the rental unit “in good faith” but said the space was “in a bad state.”
“She said she wanted the apartment, we left the apartment and that’s it,” he said, adding he had no idea about the nail inserted in the couch or the rotting meat left behind.
Busgith denied causing any damage before leaving the space, lashing out at Mangal as a “schemer” who is “running a fraud.”
“We were nothing but nice to them,” she said, adding, “We didn’t wreck nothing.”