The worst landlord in Norwood goes to Narsinh Desai, according to this year’s worst landlord watchlist compiled and released by the New York City Public Advocate’s Office.

Desai, listed as the head officer for Norwest Realty, is ranked the 70th worst landlord in the 100 Worst Landlord’s Watchlist by Public Advocate Letitia James. The shame list was first conceived by Mayor Bill de Blasio when he served as public advocate.

“There are some unscrupulous property owners who have chosen to exploit the market and the dire need for housing,” James, flanked by housing advocates and legislators, said at a news conference announcing the list. “They subject their tenants to dangerous and unsanitary conditions.”

The landlords were placed on the list for either having at least three open serious violations inside buildings with fewer than 35 units or two violations per unit in buildings with more than 35 units. C violations are considered the most egregious as determined by the New York City Housing Preservation and Development agency (HPD). C violations are those in need of immediate repair.

Desai’s building at 236 E. Gun Hill Rd. in Norwood racked up 204 violations, with 18 classified as C violations from the time the report was compiled in October. The total number of violations has since grown to 235. The public advocate’s office listed Desai as the landlord since the company is listed as a limited liability corporation, making it difficult to identify the true owner.

Desai is also listed as the head officer for nearby 3414 Knox Pl., where the 36-unit residence currently has 118 open HPD violations. Violations pegged to Desai’s buildings fall in the 10467 zip code, which has the second most HPD complaints on record, according to an analysis of the report. An assistant at Norwest Realty, just across the street from the troubled Gun Hill Road building, said Desai was not around for comment.

Tenants at the East Gun Hill Road building told the Norwood News that they weren’t familiar with their landlord. “I don’t have any relationship with the landlord so I don’t know if he’s that bad. I can tell you that the floods are occurring,” said resident Francisco Alcantara, who lives in the building with his wife, Maria. “We’ve had four floods in the three years that we’ve lived here. It gets resolved quickly but it happens here.”

Meanwhile, Jessica Zevor, another tenant, blamed the frequent flooding on her neighbors. “One person’s little girl dropped a ball in the toilet and it caused a major flood,” Zevor recounted. A self-professed supporter of Letitia James and the annual list, Zevor said management typically resolves any quality of life issues but admitted “not the rats and roaches.”

Francisco’s wife, Maria, said vermin sightings are commonplace. “Management comes and plugs a rat hole, but the rats will just open a new hole. The whole building is infested,” she said. Francisco added that they’ve occasionally seen rats jump in bed with them.

Some landlords placed in last year’s top ten worst landlords list have since been replaced after showing they’ve made improvements to their properties, James said.

This year the worst Bronx landlord went to Rawle Isaacs, who owns four buildings in the Mount Hope and Morris Heights sections of the Bronx. In all, 26 landlords of the number of landlords placed on the watchlist operated in the Bronx. A total of 67 problem buildings were found in the Bronx, representing 15 percent of the total number of buildings in the list.

Other findings include:

• Rawle Isaacs is the worst Bronx landlord on the list with 969 open HPD violations.
• Robert Kaydanian is the lowest ranking worst Bronx landlord on the list with 27 open HPD violations.
• The zip code with the most open HPD violations was 10453, covering the neighborhood of Tremont with 1311.
• The zip code with the second most open HPD violations was 10467, covering Norwood, Allerton, and Olinville with 1042.
• The zip code with the least open HPD violations is 10474, with 29 in Hunt’s Point.
• Norwood also has six of the worst landlords, the most in the Bronx.
• Zev Solomon is the worst landlord with the most reach across the Bronx with properties spreading across five zip codes (10454, 10456, 10458, 10459, 10460).
• There is a median 293 open HPD violations per building in the Bronx.

The news comes amid a housing affordability crisis the de Blasio administration has attempted to quell through its Housing New York Plan. So far, more than 20,000 apartments have either been built, repaired to livable conditions or had their finance terms re-written to prolong their affordability. Last month, the de Blasio announced that 100,000 more units will be built or preserved, bringing the number to 300,000.

With the city also undergoing a building boom, James pointed out that some of the landlords on the list happened to operate in areas where gentrification has been documented.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.