They still exist, the bargains on the rental market. Mickey Barreto, who claims to be related to Christopher Columbus, was able to live in a New York hotel for five years for a total of $200 because of an obscure law and even have it transferred to his name. But this displeased a Korean sect that now owns the Art Deco hotel building of the “New Yorker” built in 1930 and which was last reported on in connection with the fatal assassination attempt on former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe in 2022.
Living space has become scarce and expensive in many large cities. A shared room in Munich for students or trainees who usually don’t earn particularly well costs money according to the latest data now an average of 760 euros per month. The average rent for a one-room apartment in Manhattan was $4,395 a month in 2023 – almost $400 more than a year earlier.
In Germany there are rent indexes and caps that are intended to keep rents affordable, but they have hardly been able to stop the significant increase in rental prices in recent years. What it doesn’t have in this country is the obscure paragraph in New York’s Rent Stabilization Act of 1969, which Mickey Barreto exploited. Although this is primarily intended to regulate rent increases, it also allows hotels whose rooms could be rented for less than $88 a night in May 1968 to require a six-month and reduced rental agreement. A suite then becomes a rent-controlled apartment, including room service and all other amenities. Throwing Barreto out would be tantamount to illegal eviction.
The guest never paid more than the $200 for the first night
The hotel, which has hosted celebrities such as Muhammad Ali and Nikola Tesla, tried to sue its resourceful tenant. However, the judge not only agreed with Barreto, but also named him the new owner of room 2565. When Barreto discovered this, he tried, like every new owner, to have himself entered in the land register. Since this is not possible for individual hotel rooms, he quickly decided to register himself as the owner of the entire hotel.
Barreto lived in the room for over five years, never paying more than the original $200 for the first night and even demanding rent and profits from the hotel he claimed to own. Since 1976, the owner of the hotel building was the Unification Church, better known as the Moon Sect, a religious group with Korean roots that is regularly accused of exploiting vulnerable people. This applies to Shinzō Abe’s assassin. The attacker blamed the sect for his family’s financial ruin and accused Abe of having ties to this organization.
Now Barreto has caught up with all of this: Since he didn’t accept rental agreements offered by the hotel and never paid rent, the hotel ultimately threw him out and he has since been arrested on suspicion of fraud. He now faces several years in prison. Maybe the hotel room wasn’t a bargain after all.