With summer upon us, our thoughts turn to summer movies, in particular the new Brad Pitt vehicle, World War Z. In the movie, Brad Pitt attempts to stop a zombie pandemic that threatens the world. Although we have not seen the film, our guess is that Brad is up to the task.

Oddly, New York City owners of rent-regulated apartments face a similar, albeit less widespread menace: zombie tenants, i.e., opportunistic imposters who assume the identity of long dead tenants of cheap rent-regulated apartments. These dead tenants are reanimated by forged leases, unchanged mailbox labels, and anonymous money orders. If all goes well, the imposter keeps a rent-regulated apartment for years or decades, and the landlord, ignorant of the scam, never knows that he or she has been defrauded.

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