Saturday, July 28, 2012

NYC Co-Op Moves To Boot Chain-Smoking Resident Accused Of Willfully Neglecting Effects Of Her 2nd-Hand Smoke Intrusion Into Hallways, Other Units

In New York City, the New York Post reports:
  • Hit the bricks, smokestack!

    A chi-chi Upper West Side building wants to boot the trust-fund transsexual who’s been stinking up the joint with her chain smoking. In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, the co-op board of the El Dorado, at 300 Central Park West, says Diane Wells has ignored its pleas to be more considerate of her neighbors — even refusing to use the air purifiers residents bought her for her ninth-floor apartment.

    "Wells smokes so heavily that the smoke and odor permeates the elevator and extends as far down as the lobby of the building and at least as high up as the apartments on the 10th floor,” the complaint says.

    On multiple occasions, the cigarette smoke and odor [have] filled the entry halls on at least the ninth and 10th floors of building, requiring shareholders to traverse a cloud of smoke between the elevator and their apartment entrances.”

    The odor “permeates the inside of other shareholders’ apartments,” says the filing on behalf of the El Dorado, which has been home to the likes of Alec Baldwin, Bono, Michael J. Fox and Marilyn Monroe over the years.
    While Wells has lived — and smoked — in the apartment for about a decade, the problem apparently started this year.

    The building blames it on holes in the walls of Wells’ four-bedroom apartment, as well as a hole in the plumbing line. Management has offered to seal the holes, but Wells, 59, has denied them access, the suit says.

    When she refused the building’s requests to buy air purifiers for her apartment, fed-up residents bought her some on their own. But she’s refused to use them, the suit says.

    Wells, who was born a man, also has fallen behind on her common charges to the tune of $18,000 and is $42,000 short in the escrow account she agreed to maintain in return for living in the apartment, which used to belong to her late mother.

    The building is seeking an order barring her from smoking until the apartment is repaired — and an order giving her the heave-ho.
    She could not be reached for comment yesterday. Her multimillionaire mom, Constance Cheney, died in 2007.

    A Manhattan judge allowed Wells to stay there pending the outcome of a battle for her mother’s estate in Manhattan Surrogate’s Court, where she’s duking it out with her two siblings.