The landlord stops fixing the heat and somebody in 4A says we stop paying the rent. That is a rent strike. Every tenant in the building puts their money in an envelope and the envelope goes in a shoebox and the shoebox goes under somebody's bed and the landlord gets nothing. You do not need a lawyer for a rent strike. You need a shoebox and a building full of people who are tired of being cold.

The Lower East Side in the nineteen sixties was a rent strike every other month. The buildings were falling apart. The heat did not work. The rats were bigger than the cats. The landlord lived in Westchester and had never seen the inside of his own building. He collected rent the way a toll booth collects quarters. Automatically and without interest. The tenants organized. They held meetings in the hallway. They made signs. They put the signs in the windows and the signs said RENT STRIKE and the landlord saw the signs from the street and he knew.

A rent strike works because the building cannot function without the tenants but the landlord can function without the building. He has other buildings. He has a portfolio. But the tenants have one apartment and one kitchen and one bathroom with a leaking ceiling and they are not leaving because this is their home and a home is not a portfolio. A home is where you put your kids to bed at night and you should not have to put your kids to bed in a coat because the landlord will not fix the boiler.

I lived through a rent strike on East Third Street in nineteen sixty-eight. The whole building. Fourteen apartments. The woman in 2B organized it. Her name was Gloria and she was five feet tall and she stood in front of the landlord's lawyer and she said we are not paying until the heat works and the lawyer said you will be evicted and Gloria said then evict us and we will stand on the sidewalk with signs and the newspaper will come and the lawyer looked at Gloria and Gloria looked at the lawyer and the heat was fixed by Friday.

You do not hear about rent strikes anymore. The leases have clauses. The buildings have management companies. The management companies have lawyers. The lawyers have lawyers. A tenant in a new building does not know the tenant across the hall. You cannot organize a rent strike with strangers. Gloria knew every person in that building by name. She knew their kids. She knew their problems. She knew when they got paid. A rent strike is not a financial action. A rent strike is a neighborhood refusing to be ignored. And you cannot refuse to be ignored if you do not know your neighbor's name.