Dad with stage 4 cancer struggling to evict alleged Park Slope squatter, pay for home on top of medical bills

A dad battling Stage 4 pancreatic cancer says he’s been trying to boot a longtime tenant from his apartment – claiming the messy dispute has made it difficult to keep up with his mounting bills.

Thomas Wooding, of Long Island, told News 12 accused the tenant at his 4th Avenue unit in Park Slope of squatting since June 2023 — despite the woman’s claim to The Post that she’s been paying her rent all along.

“I’ve made so many impassionate pleas, to please vacate my unit, she refuses,” Wooding said to the outlet.

The landlords claim the woman – who asked that she only be identified as Audrey – stopped paying rent after they served her with a 90-day eviction notice, Wooding’s wife, Madalena, said on GoFundMe.

The Post reviewed the eviction notice, which gives Audrey until May 25th to leave the apartment under the law.

“I haven’t stopped paying the rent,” she said. “I am putting my rent in escrow. After July, I haven’t given him the rent because he’s not nice to me and I can’t trust him.”

Audrey, a 78-year-old retired public school teaching assistant who has lived in the apartment since 2013, said the dispute began after Wooding tried to raise her rent from $1,600 to $1,750 during the COVID pandemic despite city restrictions against doing so.

The feud has only escalated since.

“I want to leave,” said Audrey, who accused Wooding of being lax on repairs and upkeep. “I am looking. I am on the way out. I will leave as soon as possible.”

The Woodings took her to court earlier this year, but the case was dismissed on a technicality, they told News 12.

“Because she wasn’t served some kind of order that was set in place during the pandemic that we didn’t know about and the court clerk didn’t give it to me,” Madalena fumed.

The couple is bringing the case back to court, but is struggling to keep up with the mortgage, HOA fees, and lawyer bills on top of the medical costs of Wooding’s cancer.

“She gets free legal counsel and we don’t,” Madalena said of the tenant.

Madalena contends that local laws seem to protect tenants while putting landlords in difficult positions.

On top of the squatter situation, Madalena is the full-time caregiver for her husband and their two children.

“This case is causing us a lot of stress and we’ve lost a lot of rental income because of her and we will continue to loose [sic] as long as she is there,” she wrote on the online fundraiser.

Thomas Wooding did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for a comment.