What are the rights of a renter to sublease or Airb&b rooms in his/hers apartment? (2014)

[mbnou77]

I’m a European student who came to NY for a year to study in September 2014. I rented an apartment in Brooklyn with a sublease in october. The lease gave me a 30 days notice to check out.

On Feb 1 I received a phone call from my family saying that my father was dying and that I had to come back asap. I left the same day. A week later he was dead.
On feb 8 I wrote to the person renting me the room to tell her that I wouldn’t be able to come back but I would pay the room until March 8 in order to get my deposit back.

This person is now pressuring me to not only empty the room by feb 21st but is unwilling to give me my deposit back.

Here is my question. This person is subleasing 2 rooms in this house and renting 1 other room on Airb&b and last but not least rent the “living room” on Airb&b. This living room is separated only by a curtain. So we can’t use this common room as a subleaser. How legal is all this?
As a subleaser we have Airb&b people coming in and out every other day, our doors don’t close and we don’t know these people. The person renting me the room never told me that she was renting the space as Airb&b as well.

What can I do if she is making it difficult to get my deposit back and how legal is this all business of subleasing and Airb&bing. She is not the landlord of the building.
I’m still in Europe helping my family during this terrible time and my situation didn’t seem to affect this person at all.

[Henna]

I don't really know, but it definitely seems unfair.

It's hard for you to threaten to sue her in small claims court (for your deposit if she doesn't return it) because I believe you would have to be here physically in order to go through small claims.

You could do a Google search for "Airbnb illegal nyc" (but not in quotes) and see what comes up. There should be articles about this like http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/bu...-contends.html

http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/...n-airbnb-host/

and http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/yo...pagewanted=all

The only place I know of that you could possibly report this to would be the NYC Mayor's office of Special Enforcement or the NY State Attorney General. Even so, I doubt they will take action on one complaint. But it might give you a way to threaten her a bit to give your money back.

[NJ Brazen_3133]

Report your overtenant or landlord to the office of Special enforcement.

1718-286-8380 That is the quality of life number. I just found it.