Constructive Eviction @ 190 Main St. in Saugerties

Space No. 1

I grew up in a small town. I have had multiple businesses in small towns, and for the most part I love small towns. Why? The sense of community; the feeling that people are there for each other and support each other personally and professionally.

Meraki started out at 190 Main St. as a consignment shop. I used all the clothes from my own personal collection to fill a 2,000 sq. ft space; that's the result of close to 3 decades in the fashion industry. 

I opened my store at 190 Main St. in Saugerties on 12/01/18. In February of 2018 - 2 months after I opened - I was told the building sold and my lease would not be renewed. When I rented the space I was told there was no intent to sell the building. I was also told that no work would take place upstairs, and reassured that if it did, it would not take place during business hours. Fast forward about a month, and they started demolishing the apartment upstairs. I asked them not to do it while I was open, and was ignored. It was unbelievably loud. Plaster fell from the ceiling onto my clothing. There was a leak upstairs that soaked my ceiling, and a hole with a washcloth hanging out of it sat for over a month until someone finally came in and fixed it after me asking multiple times. The wall that I had just painted was covered in water stains, again, I had to ask multiple times for them to finally come and fix it. The driveway was never plowed. The sink leaked and I had to repair it. The lights didn’t work in the front of the store. The ceiling in the back leaked and destroyed about $350 worth of clothes. All of these concerns were ignored. 

After the building sold I was presented with my option for a first right of refusal. Meaning I had the option to buy the building before the new owners. The offer from the now owners was $280k, cash. The real estate agent and new owners came into my store on a Saturday while I was open and looked around the store, went down in the basement, etc. I asked the now current owners if they were purchasing the building and I was flat out told, “no.” A couple of days later, the real estate agent for the new owners came in and told me I needed to sign a termination for my first right of refusal, to which I declined and said I was still looking into financing the space.

I got to the store last week and it was a construction zone. My parking lot was filled with construction vehicles and garbage. There is a huge dump truck backed up to my porch filled with garbage. The items I have sitting on my porch are covered with debri, water, and dirt. I have gotten there multiple days and been unable to pull into the driveway as it was blocked by construction vehicles. The noise is unbearable and there is not even a small chance that I can conduct business in my store with what they’re doing. The banging is so loud the building shakes and vibrates. My electricity got cut “accidentally” while I was working on my computer and I lost everything I was working on. 

I did not receive communication about this from anyone. The last time I spoke to or heard from anyone was the real estate agent that I spoke to, and I told him I wasn’t signing anything. The sale went through without my knowledge. 

I reached out to the new owners multiple times via email. I got a return call from one of the new owners. I responded via email and said going forward I wanted everything to be done via email as I wanted everything in writing. No response. My last email was to let them know I would be meeting with an attorney and all communication will go through him from now on. I then woke up to an email for their attorney basically saying that all of my concerns are unfounded, that work upstairs will continue, and that I may choose to stay for one more year at the end of my lease, but that the rent would go from what it is now $1,000/mth of which I paid a full year upfront in cash, to $2,500/mth. 

Just 3 months I had been open. 3 months. 3 months and this is how members of the community treated me. The new owners have deep pockets and clearly do not care about a small business owner trying to make an honest living. I worked SO hard to open this store. This is my livelihood. Everything I had - financially, mentally, physically - went into opening this store. It is my life. To them? It’s just another investment property. I am not naive enough to think that these people care about how their actions have effected me. I do think that the community as a whole might — and should. I was essentially being pushed out of my store by the new owners as they are not only making it impossible to conduct business, they are raising the rent to a ludicrous amount. That’s called Constructive Eviction.