A 30-year-old video editor living in a four-bedroom Bushwick apartment says his roommate padlocked the only working bathroom, aimed a security camera at his bedroom door and tried to push him out with a notice giving him less than a month to leave. Kyle “Bobby” Harvey began filming the alleged ordeal, and the resulting videos have racked up more than 20 million views on Instagram.
Harvey has lived in the $4,200-a-month Bushwick apartment as a subtenant since November 2023, according to the New York Post. His roommate, Stephen Pulido, is the apartment's overtenant and primary leaseholder, and Harvey says he started filming to document what he described as an unusually large number of incidents. Pulido declined to comment on the allegations, citing ongoing legal proceedings and a harassment complaint, the outlet reports.
Among the allegations captured on camera: Pulido locked the apartment's only working bathroom from inside and sealed it with duct tape in February, according to the Post's reporting, right around the time Harvey was bedridden with severe pneumonia. Pulido also allegedly installed a new bathroom padlock, hid the household's toilet paper, and pointed a living-room security camera directly at Harvey's $1,050-a-month bedroom door. Roommate Joe Medina says he resorted to urinating in water bottles on multiple occasions rather than confront Pulido over bathroom access.
A Pattern of Alleged Confrontations
The videos also show Pulido allegedly shoving Harvey when Harvey tried to unlock the bathroom door, and slamming a heavy metal door onto Harvey's foot in January, causing him pain. Police were called twice after the alleged bathroom confrontation, and on July 17, Harvey says he was speaking with police while Pulido held onto his phone. During a July heatwave, Pulido allegedly dismantled the apartment's air-conditioning panel, per the same account.
In a March text exchange included in Harvey's documentation, Pulido allegedly told Harvey he could no longer use the kitchen or bathroom, writing, “No one lives in my home for free, you worthless trashcan of a human being.” Pulido also texted Medina that he was recording video and audio in the common area, and Medina says he experienced anxiety while living in the apartment as a result of the ongoing tension.
Notice To Vacate Fell Short of Legal Requirements
In late June, Pulido hired a process server to deliver Harvey a notice to vacate, ordering both Harvey and Medina to leave in less than a month. That notice failed to meet the legal standard set under New York Real Property Law Section 226-c, which requires housing providers and overtenants to give 90 days of written notice before ending a tenancy for anyone who has lived in a unit for more than two years, according to the New York State Senate.
Compounding the legal problems, the building's registration with the city expired in September 2024. Under NYC Housing Maintenance Code Section 27-2097, owners of multi-unit residential buildings must register annually with the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and unregistered owners face civil penalties along with restrictions on pursuing certain eviction actions in Housing Court.
Self-Help Lockouts Carry Criminal Penalties
Under New York State's RPAPL Section 768, enacted through the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, anyone — including a primary leaseholder acting against a roommate rather than a formal landlord — who intentionally evicts or attempts to evict a 30-day occupant without a court order commits a Class A misdemeanor, according to the New York Attorney General. NYC Administrative Code Section 26-521 similarly criminalizes padlocking doors, removing doorknobs, or disrupting essential services as tactics to force an occupant out.
NYPD Patrol Guide instructions direct responding officers to enforce those same statutes, treating lockouts against 30-day occupants as arrestable criminal misdemeanors rather than purely civil disputes to be sorted out later. Still, Harvey says both the NYPD and Brooklyn Housing Court told him he had few options because Pulido is the apartment's primary leaseholder rather than a traditional landlord. Occupants facing illegal lockouts can file an emergency Order to Show Cause for Restoration to Possession directly in Housing Court, per the NYC Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants, which prioritizes such petitions ahead of standard court calendars.
City Council data shows housing courts citywide fielded between 100 and 200 emergency illegal lockout petitions per month before the pandemic, underscoring how common these disputes have become in New York City's rental market.
Other Roommates Describe Similar Treatment
Harvey and Medina aren't the only ones with complaints. Carlos Brumfield, who lived with Pulido from March 2023 until June 2024, alleged that Pulido locked him out of his bedroom while he was showering, forcing him to use the fire escape just to get dressed. Leo Mark Avery, who lived in the apartment from January 2023 through July 2024, said he left because he felt uncomfortable and did not know what Pulido was capable of. Medina, for his part, has lived in the apartment for two years.
Pulido has also entered roommates' rooms without permission, both to move items and to show the rooms to prospective tenants, according to the videos and Harvey's account. He has filed his own harassment complaints with police, alleging that roommates antagonized him, and an NYPD report was filed June 29 over threatening text messages that left Pulido feeling annoyed and alarmed, per an NYPD spokesperson. A second report was filed July 15 regarding a verbal dispute that similarly left Pulido feeling annoyed and harassed.
Harvey's landlord, Justin Rubinstein, received multiple written notices about Pulido's behavior but did not intervene, saying he was reluctant to get involved in roommate disputes. On the advice of a housing lawyer, Harvey and Medina have withheld rent. Harvey says he plans to stay in the apartment and keep filming until he is served with a legal eviction notice.
Why Renters Stay in Hostile Situations
The dispute is playing out against a brutal Brooklyn rental market. The Office of the Brooklyn Borough President testified in April that while the borough's median gross rent is roughly $1,800 a month, asking rents for available market-rate one-bedroom apartments frequently top $4,000. Citywide, the residential rental vacancy rate dropped to 1.4 percent in the most recent Housing and Vacancy Survey findings published by HPD — the lowest level recorded since 1968, leaving renters with few places to go even when a living situation turns hostile.
