The landlord had told them he wanted to raise the rent to $3,500 and when they complained he decided to raise it to $9,500.
“We know that our building is not rent controlled and this was something we were always worried about happening and there is no way we can afford $9,500 per month," Yumna Farooq said.
Ya. It sounds like they wanted to raise the rent to $3500 which the landlord clearly thought was being reasonable for this building. They bitched about it so the landlord raised the rent high enough to get rid of them.
Sounds like the gambled and lost. Instead of going to the news, they should have tried to negotiate back to $3500 or something close. Good luck now.
Bumping the rent from $2500 to $3500/month is clearly not reasonable.
It’s so cool how you can lose your home for disagreeing with a landlord.