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The New York City Department of Sanitation requires city residents to fully seal any mattresses or box springs in plastic bags before leaving them out for curbside pickup. Failure to do so can result in a $100 fine. The law is intended to help slow the spread of bedbugs.

A district court judge in Nassau County recently ruled that an Upper East Side tenant could break her lease and pay reduced rent because when she had complained about a neighbor's cigarette smoking, the landlord failed to take appropriate action to alleviate the secondhand smoke.

A settlement between a developer and the U.S. government has owners across the city fearing they'll be forced to make changes at tens of thousands of apartments to comply with federal law preventing discrimination against the disabled.

Mayor Bloomberg and DOB Commissioner LiMandri recently announced the results of an undercover operation to crack down on illegally converted dwellings and hold property owners accountable for putting potential tenants and first responders at risk.

Governor Paterson recently signed into law a measure giving the city greater power to crack down on illegal hotels. The law removes a legal gray area that contributed to the problem of landlords renting apartments as hotel rooms so they can charge more than rent laws allow. It provides a clear definition of permanent occupancy.

For two subsequent years before this year's Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) order, the RGB authorized a fixed rent increase that affected only tenants who have lived in their apartments for six years or longer and had legal rents of $1,000 or less. Approximately 300,000 apartments had renewal leases executed in 2008 and 2009 that fell under the low-rent supplement criteria in RGB Orders #40 (2008) and #41 (2009).

The Department of Buildings (DOB) has been under increased scrutiny in the past few years, after a series of tragic construction accidents and the recent guilty plea by a construction crane company that it paid off a top city inspector to shortcut safety inspections and licensing exams. The company acknowledged it had paid the inspector more than $10,000 to fake results for inspections that were never conducted and to certify that the company's Nu-Way workers had passed crane operator tests that at least one of them never took.

Beginning in March 2009, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) began installing Automated Meter Reading (AMR) transmitters on water meters throughout the city. This is a three-year project designed to virtually eliminate estimated bills and provide apartment owners with more information about the water use in their buildings.

The Tenant Protection Act, which gave tenants the right to sue owners in Housing Court for using threats or other disruptive tactics to force them out, was upheld in a recent State Supreme Court ruling. The law made harassment a housing code violation and allowed a judge to impose civil penalties of $1,000 to $5,000 against violators. The judge dismissed the lawsuit brought against the city by owners. The suit claimed that the law violated the state and federal Constitutions and unlawfully expanded the jurisdiction of the city's Housing Maintenance Code and of Housing Court judges.

In an attempt to address affordable housing issues in New York City and surrounding communities, the state assembly overwhelmingly passed a sweeping 10-bill legislative package that, among other things, would scale back increases on rent-regulated apartments statewide, returning to regulation tens of thousands of units that were converted to market rate in recent years.