New York, NY —

Tenants at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village say landlord Tishman Speyer is conducting massive complex-wide apartment inspections and then threatening them with possible evictions.

Letters to tenants say apartment inspectors will be looking for fire and safety code violations, such as temporary walls that could be blocking fire exits. John Marsh, vice president of the tenants association, says inspectors are intimidating residents and giving them too little time to fix problems. "This owner, while doing these inspections, has issued preliminary eviction notices for violations of the fire and sanitary codes. For an older person with no one to help them, these letters are quite frightening," Marsh says.

Tishman Speyer has been struggling financially and is close to defaulting on its loan, mostly because its been unable to turn rent stabilized apartments into market rate apartments fast enough.

Rent stabilized tenants see these inspections as an excuse to remove them from their apartments.

Tishman Speyer says it takes code violations seriously, which is why it's conducting the inspections. The landlord says it will work with residents to address any problems.

Right now 61% out of the roughly 11,000 apartments at the large complex remain rent-stabilized.