An Upper West Side couple are feeling decidedly fenced in after a neighbor turned their ritzy digs into a virtual “shantytown,” they claim.
The rear of Jeffrey and Michelle Feig’s apartment building at 225 Central Park West overlooked green back yards that enhanced the peaceful environment.
Until last year, when the Kadoe family in a neighboring brownstone at 7 W. 82nd St. decided to rake in up to $1,650 a week by renting part of their building as a hotel, the Feigs claim in a lawsuit.
The space is advertised on homeaway.com as a “charming Central Park West apartment” that can sleep up to six people.
The neighbors soon built a terrace that brought a different set of “guests” eye-level with the Feigs’ window each week.
The rancor between the Feigs and Kadoes ratcheted up, and in February Michel Kadoe installed a fence just inches from the family’s window, according to court papers.
“I walk through my apartment 900 times a day and pass the window and fence 900 times a day,” said Mrs. Feig. “I feel victimized in my own home.”
“This is really an ‘F U’ fence,” said Adam Leitman Bailey, the Feigs’ lawyer.
The Feigs are asking a Manhattan Supreme Court judge to shut down Kadoe’s guesthouse, and are seeking $4.5 million in damages and the removal of the terrace and fence.
But Kadoe claims the Feigs’ 8-by-5-foot picture window is part of a terrace that actually juts onto his property and ruins his privacy.
“This is not a fence — this is a 4-foot screen so I can have some privacy in my life,” he said.
Kadoe, who is in the real-estate business, also denied he’s turned his apartment into a hotel.
“A hotel has 40 to 50 rooms, so what hotel are you talking about? I have regular tenants that live in the building. Whenever I have a vacancy I rent it out.”