[nagdu] Keeping a Best Friend, Over a Co-op's Objections

[Ginger Kutsch]

Keeping a Best Friend, Over a Co-op's Objections
By ISOLDE RAFTERY
June 23, 2010, 11:06 am 
City Room Blog - NYTimes.com
 

Donald Reilly and P. T. at home in their apartment on Central
Park West.
If there's one rule any resident at 407 Central Park West knows,
it's that no dogs are allowed. 
 
So when Donald W. Reilly, a former Marine, returned home from the
Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 with a beagle puppy,
several of his neighbors were surprised. Several told their co-op
board representative, who demanded that his landlord take action.
Letters were exchanged, with Mr. Reilly explaining his situation,
but nothing happened. 
 
His situation was this: He was disabled, living in a
rent-stabilized apartment, and the dog was his emotional support.
He had been living in the building since 1968, long before the
building converted to a co-op, and he remembered the days when
dogs were commonplace in the building. Even with the co-op rule,
he did not think the pup would pose a problem. 
 

 But it did. And like many disputes among apartment dwellers,
there were other issues: Some neighbors said Mr. Reilly was a
problem, often sawing and doing loud work into the night. After
several years of back-and-forth, Mr. Reilly received word that he
would have to move out by Christmas Day 2008 or face eviction
proceedings. 
 
Rules were rules, the board said, but Mr. Reilly, 71, viewed the
action as discrimination. Facing eviction, he and his lawyer
filed a petition with the Department of Housing and Urban
Development, asking that he be allowed to keep his beagle, P. T.
 
Last month, he won his case, along with $6,000 in lawyer's fees
from his landlord and the co-op board. 
 
Mr. Reilly is among 25 to 50 residents every year who appeal to
the agency, asking to keep a pet as an emotional support.
Amendments to the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968 allow disabled
people to keep service animals in their homes, no matter the
building's rules. Emotional support animals fall into that
category. 
 
Fifteen years ago, there were few petitions to keep emotional
support animals. But that changed in the 2000s, said Jo-Ann Frey,
the director of the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity,
a division of HUD. 
 
"We all know about having a guide dog, so that's not a secret,"
Ms. Frey said. "But emotional support animals are becoming more
prevalent."
 
Caring for animals forces tenants out of their pajamas and out of
the building, she said. Mr. Reilly, for example, walks P. T.
twice a day to Central Park, where he socializes with other dog
owners. 
 
Securing this allowance isn't easy, however. Doctors are
interviewed, and lawyers are hired to negotiate. Landlords are
often reluctant, worried that if one tenant is allowed a pet,
other residents will want one as well. 
 
"They're not on board with an emotional support animal because
they see it as a way to get around a no-pet policy," Ms. Frey
said. 
 
Mr. Reilly's disability dates back to his days in the Marines,
when he was found to have narcolepsy, a sleep disorder that
caused him to fall asleep suddenly during the day for up to a
minute. He was honorably discharged. He also has diabetes and
high blood pressure. He takes 10 different medications a day.
 
When Hurricane Katrina hit in the summer of 2005, he signed up to
volunteer with an emergency response team out of Battery Park
City. He knew how to run small boats. 
 
In the Gulf Coast, he discovered unimaginable devastation - and
came upon four abandoned beagle puppies. Unable to resist their
floppy ears and pleading eyes, he scooped them up. 
 
He gave three away to military families and kept the quietest,
whom he named Pierre Gustave Tonton Beauregard, for the
Confederate general. (The general's real name was Pierre Gustave
Toutant Beauregard; in French, "tonton" is an affectionate term
for uncle.) 
 
When Mr. Reilly was given notice that he had to leave his
apartment, he did what he did every day - he talked to fellow dog
owners in Central Park. Someone suggested he contact Maddy
Tarnofsky, one of three lawyers in New York who specialize in pet
eviction cases. 
 
Ms. Tarnofsky, too, lives in a rent-stabilized apartment on
Central Park West with her dog, a Newfoundland named Maizie.
(That's short for Miss Mazeppa, one of the three strippers in the
Broadway musical "Gypsy.")
 
"If someone comes to me and says, 'I'm depressed,' I say, 'Go out
on the sidewalk in New York City - 9 out of 10 people are
depressed," Ms. Tarnofsky said. "There needs to be some
connection made between the presence of the animal in the
apartment and the management of the person's condition. The
presence of the animal will help them to cope with their
symptoms." 
 
Ms. Tarnofsky believed that Mr. Reilly, who pays $700 a month for
his one-bedroom at the back of the building, would win his case.
Since she started specializing on pet cases, none of her clients
has lost a pet. She has helped people with H.I.V. and cancer, and
on two occasions, for couples who could not conceive.
 
She filed a complaint with the Fair Housing office after Mr.
Reilly's first court appearance on the eviction proceeding. 
 
Janusz B. Sikora, the assistant secretary for the co-op board,
said Mr. Reilly's complaint took him by surprise. 
 
"We didn't want to push him out of the building whatsoever," Mr.
Sikora said.
 
As usual, there was more to the story than met the eye, and there
were issues with Mr. Reilly beyond the dog. 
 
"He thinks the law does not apply to him," Mr. Sikora said. "He
does renovations, and he does not ask the landlord. Tenants
complain about sawing, hammering and alterations. You're not
supposed to make noises after 10 p.m."
 
Mr. Reilly, for his part, would move if he could afford it. He
would like a bigger apartment - at least one more room for an
office - and friendlier neighbors. They're just not the way they
used to be, he said, before gentrification. Back then, they said
more than a frigid hello in the elevator. 
 
Cordial relations aside, Mr. Reilly isn't planning on leaving.
Nor is the dog. The settlement allows for Mr. Reilly to get
another dog after P. T., so long as it isn't one of a long list
of large dogs. 
 
"With him around, I pay attention to him and his needs - I don't
worry about getting embroiled in my situation," Mr. Reilly said.
"In that regard he keeps me sane, you know, instead of spending
time sitting around all by myself worrying how I'm going to pay
the rent." 
 
He looked at P. T., who looked away. 
 
"I know you're not dead," Mr. Reilly said. He laughed. 
 
"I'm glad he's so funny, because laughing is wonderful," he said.
"I laugh a lot because he's around."
 
He paused. "It's a drag to sink into the torpor of not being
used. If no one in the world wants you, it does nasty things to
yourself." 
 
Christine Haughney contributed reporting.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/keeping-a-best-frien
d-over-a-co-ops-objections/