Landlord in Mount Airy and North Philly fined tenants $5,000 for complaining about sewage and infestations, AG’s suit says

The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office has sued a Philadelphia-area property management company, accusing SBG Management Services of forcing Philadelphia tenants to live in unsafe homes and charging residents thousands of dollars in retaliatory fees for “legal expenses” when they filed complaints with the state.

The Attorney General’s Office said tenants in SBG Management’s properties have lived with rodent and cockroach infestations, broken and unsecured doors and locks, leaks, water damage, lack of heat, and mold. Tenants told state officials that raw sewage has come up through their bathtubs and repeatedly has flooded a basement where washer and dryer units are located.

SBG Management operates about 15 residential properties in and around Philadelphia. But the lawsuit, filed Thursday, came in response to complaints from tenants at Cresheim Valley Apartments in Philadelphia’s West Mount Airy neighborhood and Lindley Towers in the Logan neighborhood, the property where part of a building façade collapsed last September, forcing about 100 residents to evacuate.

Last year, the city of Philadelphia and the legal aid nonprofit Community Legal Services of Philadelphia sued SBG Management over conditions at Lindley Towers.

» READ MORE: Judge rules Logan apartment owners must keep residents displaced by collapse housed in hotels

Over the last few years, Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses and Inspections has cited Lindley Towers and Cresheim Valley Apartments for at least 118 total code violations, including for electrical hazards, structural problems, and fire safety, plumbing, heating, and water supply issues.

In the lawsuit filed Thursday in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, the Attorney General’s Office said SBG Management did not fix tenants’ issues in a timely manner or didn’t address them at all, collected rent without the required licenses and lead-safe certifications, and used illegal tactics to get tenants to pay rent.

According to the lawsuit, SBG Management shut off electricity to two tenants in Lindley Towers who each were withholding rent because of unaddressed repair issues, instead of going through the eviction process. When the tenants paid, the landlord turned their electricity back on, the lawsuit said.

» READ MORE: Pennsylvania landlord and tenant rights: Water, utility bills and shutoffs

According to the lawsuit, SBG Management charged some tenants $5,000 for filing complaints with the Attorney General’s Office. This January, the agency requested that the property management company stop charging these fees. The state said SBG Management did not respond.

A lawyer representing SBG Management said Friday that he learned of the lawsuit from an Inquirer reporter and had not read it, so he had no comment about the state’s allegations.

» READ MORE: Philadelphia sues owner of apartment building damaged by partial collapse last week

The Attorney General’s Office is asking the court to keep SBG Management and its owner, Philip Pulley, from collecting rent or starting or renewing leases until the properties are inspected and repaired and they get all required licenses and certifications. The office also is asking that they pay restitution to tenants and civil penalties.

“This management company neglected the safety and basic human needs of their tenants, then thought they could intimidate those who spoke up by imposing unfair retaliatory fees,” Attorney General Michelle Henry said in a statement. “My office will not tolerate landlords who fail to maintain properties and put Pennsylvanians at risk.”

One resident at the Cresheim Valley Apartments, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, told a reporter that sewage “will just sit in the basement like a pond” that residents have had to walk through and tenants have been forced to use laundromats. The tenant said the sewage does get cleaned up, but backups continue. The most recent incident occurred about a month ago during heavy rains, the tenant said.

“The tenants who have lived here have made these apartments their homes. They don’t want to leave the community,” the tenant said. “This might be [the owner’s] property, but this is our homes and we are going to fight for our homes.”

Residents started a tenant council and have been working with tenant advocacy organizations.

» READ MORE: Tenant rights: What to do when the heat in your rental unit stops working

“We are on a mission to ensure that tenant rights are protected,” the tenant said. “We are on a mission to make sure this landlord and SBG Management do the right thing and make sure we have safe and stable housing, which is their responsibility. ... Tenants are integral parts, members, participants of communities. We are not disposable. We are not individuals you can exploit.”

The tenant said “the love and support” that Cresheim Valley tenants feel from homeowners in West Mount Airy “is just monumental.”

» READ MORE: A Philadelphia landlord is being sued for refusing to accept housing subsidies in majority white neighborhoods

Neighborhood groups encouraged tenants to speak up about their experiences and joined their organizing efforts. Josephine Gasiewski Winter, executive director of the registered community organization West Mount Airy Neighbors, said she dropped off packages of informational flyers for tenants and put up flyers herself, but she saw people removing them.

“We really had difficulty getting information about our advocacy meetings to tenants,” she said.

The Attorney General Office’s lawsuit is “really a testament to the tenants and their tenacity,” she said. “It’s the tenants who were brave enough to organize and take this on.”