Nyc Housing, Rats In Living Space, Hostile Landlord

I need advice. Location: NYC.

I’m dealing with a rat issue INSIDE my living space.

It’s not a conventional apartment building. I share a brownstone with the landlord. She lives on the first and second floors. I occupy the third with a roommate.

I have written documentation that I sighted a rat September 3. Several follow up emails after that, and then a few HPD reports. I also have some photos of the copious amount of rat droppings on the linoleum of her second floor kitchen. No visit from an exterminator despite my requests.

My roommate has also reported rat sightings, and expressed this in writing over email as well.

After repeated convos with the landlord, the problem is that she doesn’t want to pay to exterminate the rats or address the underlying infrastructural issues. She wasn’t even willing to give me traps and poison, she wanted me to do that at my own expense. I know it doesn’t make sense given that we live in the SAME HOUSE.

Considering the way she talks about the issue, it seems she thinks that it’s normal. She said she was “surprised that the rats reached the third floor” and the she often sees a couple of rats in the basement and on the first floor here and there.

Here’s my issue.

I was able to find a new place on very very short notice. After looking for a couple of weeks, things came together in a matter of days. I expressed my intention to leave Sept 29. I formally signed a lease elsewhere yesterday Oct 1, I booked movers for Saturday Oct 3.

I’m on an informal month to month agreement with my landlord. I submitted an application with my signature which stipulates some of the terms of my stay (30 day notice, no prorated rent), but it’s not a contract. She didn’t countersign and the form has a header which explicitly states “application.”

I tried to meet my landlord halfway and was explicit in my intention to pay a prorated rate for my two nights in October. We talked in person about my departure and everything seemed copacetic. I also expressed this in writing in an email I sent to her.

Then last night she sends me an unhinged email where she:
-Demands I pay a full month of October rent
-States her intention to withhold my deposit
-Tells me i never informed her of the rat problem (which is a boldfaced lie considering her email is part of the past month’s ongoing thread, you just need to scroll down to see mention of rats )

Then something crazy happened.

The cops came at two in the morning and I was woken up because she reported that I stole a package from her. This was proven to be untrue. The package was located elsewhere in the house.

I’m now at work kind of terrified that my landlord is going to do something to my stuff in my absence.

I mostly just want to survive today and make it to the next morning, but what can I do re: deposit, October rent. What’s my legal standing.