Slumlord in Bucks County allegedly forced tenants to live in uninhabitable conditions, officials say

Bucks County District Attorney Joe Khan is taking a landlord to court. 

Khan announced on Monday that he's filed a civil lawsuit against a landlord at a residential building in Dublin Borough who allegedly demanded rent from tenants and forced them to live in uninhabitable conditions. 

It marks the first time the Bucks County District Attorney's Office has utilized the Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law to hold a landlord accountable for unfair housing practices, according to Khan. 

"Today marks a major step towards fulfilling our longstanding promise to be a 'law office of the people,'" Khan said in a statement. "Tenants have a legal right to basic safety, and our office will stand up to seek justice for those who have been mistreated, especially victims who are elderly, disabled, or otherwise vulnerable to exploitation." 

The landlords who are being taken to court own the residential building at 113 South Main Street in Dublin Borough, which is about halfway between Quakertown and Doylestown in Bucks County. 

No one was at the property Monday afternoon, where an orange "uninhabitable" sign was plastered on the front window. Prosecutors filed the civil lawsuit against the landlords, who they said are brothers, and an alleged fictitious company they ran.

The lawsuit filed by Khan alleges that the landlords profited by forcing "vulnerable, low-income tenants to choose between staying in unsafe housing or facing homelessness."

According to Khan, the building has been plagued by severe code violations and a lack of essential services, including heat, for over a decade. Reports documenting fire hazards and a lack of heat go back as far as 2013.

Khan said that the building forced tenants to rely on their own portable electric heaters plugged into unreliable electrical wiring, which created fire hazards. The building also allegedly lacked functional smoke detectors and had blocked or inaccessible emergency exits.

Khan said detectives also inspected the building and found black mold in the community bathroom, a large piece of plywood covering a hole in the floor of one of the bathrooms and cockroach and rodent infestations. They also said the building had an "overwhelming odor of human waste" and that the eight-bedroom building only had one functioning bathroom at the time of the complaint. 

Khan said six people were living in the eight-bedroom building when it was condemned last week.

"There were conditions that we wouldn't subject our prisoners to in Bucks County," Khan said. "Rodents, insects, infestations. And while these tenants paid their rent month after month, some of them up to $900 a month to live in squalor. They were in a building that had code violations so severe that last week, the worst that they feared happened. The building was condemned and they were left on the street." 

Bucks County social services has helped the six tenants who lived in the condemned building find other arrangements. 

Khan is seeking a permanent injunction, restitution for the six tenants and civil penalties. He's asking anyone who was a tenant of the property from 2013 to 2016 to contact them. 

"For far too long, the tenants of 113 Main Street were subjected to absolutely abhorrent living conditions," Dublin Borough Council President Tim Hayes said in a statement. "I am glad to hear District Attorney Khan is pursuing this case to hold the property owner accountable and provide restitution for the former tenants. This will send a clear message: the responsibility you assume as a landlord does not end when living conditions deteriorate to the point of legal action. Safe housing is not optional, it's the expectation. Our neighbors deserve nothing less, and if those standards are not met, we will act."