Residents of a Bronx apartment building say they have spent years living alongside a tenant who allegedly bangs on doors with a hatchet, lurks in hallways with a knife, and once turned on four gas burners without lighting them, and the city's housing court system has yet to remove him.
Anthony Orozco, 28, has been arrested twice in the past month alone at the East 214th Street building in the Williamsbridge section of the Bronx, police said. He faces charges of criminal mischief and menacing. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, court records show.
Yet Orozco remains in the building. The management company, Metro Landmark Realty, told the New York Post it has been seeking his eviction since June, but the case remains stuck in housing court. Meanwhile, the people who share walls with Orozco say they are the ones paying the price.
Tenant Leonia Clemente, 44, described Orozco's behavior in blunt terms to the Post:
"We have the tenant from h***. He drives us crazy, he harasses us. He does a lot. He does a lot of crazy things."
Clemente said Orozco wears different wigs and targets different neighbors depending on which one he has on. She told the Post:
"The blonde wig, he messes with me. The pink wig, he messes with the guy on the second floor. The red wig, he messes with the third floor. Depending on what wig he has on, it's who he messes with... He has different personalities. It's multiple personalities."
Video obtained by the Post showed Orozco banging on a door with a hatchet while wearing a black dress. Other clips showed him in the common area in only underwear. Footage first obtained by News 12 showed him in the hallways with a knife, knocking on doors. Neighbors also filmed him being taken from the building by police.
The situation came to a head in early April. A Metro Landmark Realty manager said Orozco turned on all four stove burners inside his apartment on April 4 without lighting them, filling the unit with gas. The FDNY responded.
The consequences fell on every tenant in the building. Metro Landmark Realty said gas for the entire building has been turned off for a month since the FDNY arrived at the scene. Families who pay their rent on time lost cooking gas because of one tenant's alleged conduct.
Alexandra Reina, 51, a neighbor, told the Post what she witnessed that day:
"He was sitting there smoking cigarettes under this gas. The whole area was gassed down. So what was he trying to do, blow up everybody in the building?"
New York City's governance failures extend well beyond one apartment building. The city's leadership has drawn repeated scrutiny for how it handles public safety and community concerns, from Mayor Mamdani's calls to abolish ICE to the grinding pace of housing court proceedings that leave law-abiding tenants with no recourse.
Police said Orozco was arrested on April 13 and charged with criminal mischief after he allegedly broke a camera on the front door of an apartment with a stick. Then, on April 29, police said he was arrested again and charged with menacing after he was allegedly swinging a metal rail at a 44-year-old woman in front of her apartment.
The NYPD confirmed the arrest and said Orozco was charged with menacing. He pleaded not guilty, court records show.
Some residents told the Post the erratic behavior has been going on for three years. Metro Landmark Realty said Orozco last paid rent in December 2024, meaning he has occupied the unit for months without paying while the eviction case crawls through the system.
Calls to two lawyers in Orozco's criminal cases were not returned Thursday, the Post reported.
Reina did not mince words about what she wants from the city. She told the Post:
"We are just asking for someone to come and get him out of here and get him some help and put him in the hospital."
She added:
"Something had to be done. They have to help this man because he's going to hurt someone or someone is going to hurt him. Before it gets like that, take care of the situation and the problem we have there."
That plea captures the impossible position these tenants occupy. They are not asking for vengeance. They are asking for a functioning system, one that protects people who follow the rules from someone who, by every available account, does not.
The broader dysfunction in New York's political class only deepens the frustration. While city leaders have spent recent months embroiled in controversies, including condemnation from lawmakers over the mayor's geopolitical statements and revelations about inflammatory social media activity tied to the mayor's household, ordinary Bronx residents wait for a housing court to act on a case that has been pending since at least last summer.
The facts here are straightforward. A tenant allegedly menaced his neighbors with a hatchet, a knife, and a metal rail. He allegedly created a gas hazard that shut off service for an entire building. He has been arrested twice in a single month. He has not paid rent since December 2024. And his eviction case, filed months ago, remains unresolved.
New York's tenant-protection laws were designed to prevent landlords from abusing vulnerable renters. That is a legitimate goal. But when those same protections make it functionally impossible to remove a tenant who allegedly swings weapons at neighbors and fills a building with gas, the system is no longer protecting the vulnerable. It is endangering them.
When a Post reporter approached Orozco's door, he threatened to call the cops. He told a Spanish television station reporter he would only do an interview for $5,000. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Meanwhile, Leonia Clemente, Alexandra Reina, and their neighbors go home every night to a building where the gas has been off for a month, where a man with multiple arrests allegedly roams the hallways, and where the court system offers no clear timeline for relief. The city's ongoing political distractions, including backlash over Gracie Mansion controversies, only underscore how far removed leadership seems from the daily reality of residents who simply want to feel safe in their own hallway.
These tenants are not asking for anything radical. They want the law enforced, the dangerous removed, and the building made livable again. In a functioning city, that would not be a tall order.
When paying your rent and following the rules makes you the one without recourse, something has gone very wrong, and it did not go wrong by accident.