Lily Belle Poling, Contributing Photographer

On Tuesday afternoon, tenants from the 1455 State St. Tenant Union stood outside of Farnam Realty Group’s office and advised passersby to “avoid Farnam,” as they distributed flyers advertising leaks, mold and poor security.

The tenants allege that Farnam is unresponsive to building maintenance requests and refuses to negotiate new lease terms. Farnam denies these allegations and says it is not obligated to negotiate lease terms. 

Tenants of the 17-unit apartment building are experiencing mold, heating issues, leaks and high electricity bills, according to Lauren Palulis, the vice president of the tenants union. 

Tuesday’s action followed a similar September protest outside of Farnam’s office, after which the realty group agreed to meet with the tenants union. At the time, Farnam founder and broker Carol Lopez Horsford wrote to the News that Farnam had communicated with tenants about how to submit maintenance requests using their rental portal and that the property manager had been in “constant contact” with all tenants. 

“This feels a lot like gaslighting,” Horsford told the News. “It feels a lot like harassment, actually, because we’ve done everything that we’re supposed to do, including every single maintenance request.”

Horsford said she and her firm strive to respond to maintenance requests as soon they can when tenants file them online. As of Tuesday, the 1455 State St. property had no outstanding maintenance requests, she said. She claimed the tenant union’s flyer was slanderous, and that if she wanted to file a lawsuit, she’d have a case to “go after them” for it. 

In the flyer tenants passed out at the rally, they claimed that tickets in the maintenance request portal are closed without Farnam speaking to tenants. Horsford denied the allegation, reiterating that her firm responds to requests as soon as they can, and that the system currently has no outstanding requests for the State Street property.

The News could not independently verify the tenants’ claims.

At the protest, Palusis said she was hoping to hear from Farnam, but that “it doesn’t seem, at this current moment, like they’re interested in engaging with us.”

Another tenant, Krystopher Linderman, expressed concerns about the safety and security of the building, especially because his apartment is located right next to the building’s entrance.

“Though there is a lockbox-type system with a code on it that is supposed to prevent that from happening, we still end up having issues with security and having people sleeping in the building,” he said. “It’s not safe to really step out of the apartment because you never know what’s on the other side.”

Farnam is the receiver of rents for the State Street apartment building, meaning that a state court appointed the realty group to collect rents, maintain the property, and provide financial reports to the court.

The building, formerly owned and managed by Ocean Management, required a receiver because of the owner’s failure to pay the mortgage, according to Carol Horsford, the Farnam founder and broker. Farnam took over the receivership from Norman Goodman late this past summer. 

“The rent roll of the building is less than the amount of the monthly mortgage, so the building barely has the finances to maintain itself,” Horsford said of 1455 State St. On top of that, she added, the building has two non-paying tenants. 

Horsford said that in its first month as receiver, Farnam spent over $35,000 to fix up the property, which included changing the front door key, adding an additional lock and changing the lock on the back door. 

Linderman, who was present for the meetings with Farnam, said he felt the experience of working with Farnam was good at the beginning, but broke down over time. He believed Farnam became frustrated with dealing with the union, despite the union behaving cordially.

Horsford, citing New Haven’s ordinance regarding tenants unions, explained that landlords have no obligation to negotiate with tenants unless they have a hearing with the Fair Rent Commission. She also explained that Farnam does not have the authority to negotiate leases with the tenants union due its receiver status.

“I’m surprised that they’re not happy with the fact that we’ve done all this work for them, but we can’t do things that are not in our jurisdiction,” Horsford said of Tuesday’s protest.

She recommended that the union negotiate with the owner of the property — 1455 State Development LLC — which can be found at 101 Whitney Ave., the office location of Ocean Management. Ocean Management has a history of transferring properties between LLCs.

Union members have demanded that Farnam relinquish the property to another receiver who will bargain with them if they do not agree to come back to the table. Multiple protestors agreed they would continue to take action until their demands are met. 

Unproductive back and forths between the union and Farnam have tempted Horsford to renounce the receivership, she said. 

“​​I can just give up the receivership, and they can go back to whoever they had before, or the next person,” she said.

Farnam Realty Group is located at 107 Whitney Ave.