MARK SCHULTE, VAGRANT SQUATTER: The Horror of Having a "Black Out" Drunk for a Roommate

reporter/photographer: Miguel Dominguez

Black out drunk Mark Schulte in one of his freeloading,
public binges at the Leslie Lohman Museum

On the week of September 15, 2014, Mark Schulte, an acquaintance I befriended since 2011, but whose private life I knew nothing about, sent a mass email saying he needed a new place to move to. As bad luck would have it, a former roommate I had, just moved out the day before, and having a room to rent, I asked him to come look at it if he wanted to move in.

On the 3rd week of October, 2014, Mark finally called me for an appointment to come look at the room. When I asked him what took him so long, he told me he had been in Intensive Care for 5 days at the hospital because he fainted in the street with pneumonia. He claimed that on his way to the hospital all is property, including all his clothing and documents, were stolen, and he was completely destitute. Furthermore, his landlord had locked him out of the apt. because the was a subtenant in it while the prime tenant had moved away to Europe, and the landlord would not let him come into the apt. to pick up his belongings. I felt very sorry for him, so I offered to let him stay in my apt. as a guest until he could get his bearings together and eventually become my roommate once he was able to get his finances in order. He accepted, with the promise he would pay his share of the rent before the month of December would be over.

By mid month of December, 2014, I started asking Mark Schulte on a daily basis to pay his portion of the rent and he pleaded for me to wait till after new year's because of the Christmas rush to be over at the bank. Not realizing that the same housing laws apply to licensees as they do to paying sub-tenants, I let him stay at my apt. for more than 30 days, which did not allow me to throw him out unless I resorted to court litigation.

By the first week of January, 2015, now that he felt himself safely wedged into my home, Mark Schulte's lifestyle and attitude took a drastic change and he began to go into late night bouts of drunkenness, standing by the kitchen sink, downing a full 750 ml bottle of Vodka, or 2 bottles of wine, not out of enjoyment, but like a junkie getting himself a fix. I also started complaining to him about a very unpleasant, and pungent smell coming out of his room due to the fact that he was not washing his clothes and specially his bedding. When he would stay at the apt., every time he would leave the door to the bedroom open, the whole apt. would become permeated with the same kind of overpowering stench one would find in a subway car with just one homeless person inside, for having driven every one else away. It was also at this time that Mark Schulte told me he wasn't paying the rent yet because since it was the beginning of the month, the waiting on line at his bank was too long.

Photo advertising room for rent as it was the day Mark Schulte moved in.

Mark Schulte not only suffers from severe alcoholic addiction, but collects
the empties as well, never getting rid of them. This particular amount
piled up within the first week of the second month in my apt., so that
I couldn't get rid of his smelly presence and filthy lifestyle except
through the court system. I took me 8 months to get rid of him, all the
while he was squatting in my home refusing to pay a single cent on
rent or utilities

Last photo of room by the end of the last 2 months, while I was forbidden
by the judge to go inside the room, Mark Schulte had turned it into a combination
of dumpster and public urinal. Underneath the mound of plastic bags on the left,
were over 50 quart sized bottles of vodka, and even more of the pint sized ones.
Mark would drink 2 of the latter a night, when he couldn't get a hold of full
sized bottles, in order to pass out on the floor. That was his way of sleeping.

January 10, was his birthday, Mark Schulte decided to have a party, inviting friends from 12 noon till late in the evening.

January 11, 2015 – Woke up that morning to find Mark Schulte gone from the premises. Knowing that he had left all kinds of food encrusted dishes and dirty glasses that needed to be washed, my concern being to prevent creating any access for vermin to move into the apt., I waited till evening to finally go into his room and do house cleaning. I became extremely distressed when I opened the door and was assaulted by the overpowering stench of urine, and was totally devastated by the fact that in his latest drinking binge, he had become incontinent and completely soaked in urine a brand new area rug, and a less than 1 year old queen size mattress that had to be thrown away immediately. That made up my mind right then and there to get rid of this very unsanitary person, for he had finally revealed himself without any doubts that he was the equivalent of the drunks one sees laying in their own pool of urine on the sidewalks of the city, and therefore a serious health hazard inside my home.

All these bottles and open containers are filled with the urine he accumulated night
after night without ever bothering to go to the bathroom next to the room and getting
rid of it. The whole time he was squatting in my home, the place smelled like a
public urinal that had been neglected for weeks

January 12, 2015 – That morning, while Mark Schulte was in the bathroom, not realizing that licensees have the same rights as sub-tenants, I took the keys to the apt. off his key ring, and told him he would be allowed inside only to collect his property. He left without the keys and I went into his room to bag all his belongings. When I went into the closet, to my horror, he had been using it to store bags of garbage, and food stained, food wraps and containers, including empty pizza boxes covered with grease and bits of pizza and at least four 30 gallon garbage bags filled with as many as 50 empty bottles of liquor, all jumbled together with his clothes. It got worse. While moving the furniture in the room, in order to get rid of the mattress, I upset an open half gallon jar that he had kept behind a shelving unit, filled with old urine that he had been using instead of simply walking to the bathroom located right next to the room he was in. I had to mop the floor twice before I could get rid of the stench.

More than 50 quart sized bottles of vodka are hidden under the blanket of over 80 plastic bags
 containing remnants of exposed food.

Due to the extensive and expensive damage Mark Schulte did to my property in the room, I had to
 remove  everything from it, except the futon frame, it being too big for me to move some place else.
He immediately started using it as a prop to display containers and bags filled with exposed food
 and empty bottles of booze that he would never dispose of, actively trying to bring into my home
 a vermin infestation

All this food in plastic bags were left on the window sill for more than 3 months. By the time
I managed to get rid of them, all the food inside had turned into a green mold, slimy mush

From January 13 to the 25, 2015 – Mark Schulte did not return to apt.

On January 25, 2015 Mark Schulte returned to the apt. with police officers, who told me that according to housing laws, Mark had all the rights of a tenant and told me to give back the keys to Mark. That was when Mark Schulte informed me that the only way he would move out of my apt. was by legal eviction, and that it would take a year to dislodge him out of my home. It was then that I told Mark Schulte I did not want him drinking any alcohol in my home. He chose to completely disregard my request, going on drunken binges every night he spends in my apt., and piling up empty bottles of liquor and mixers and food contaminated trash on the floor of the bedroom, turning the room into an open dumpster besides a stinking subway car. It was also on that day, having put Mark Schulte belongings in plastic bags which I previously left in the apt's hallway, I placed them back into the bedroom. It was then that I noticed bedbug bites on my right wrist.  I immediately called the building's superintendent to inform him about the vermin infestation Mark Schulte brought into my home. Mark Schulte claimed the bedbugs had been here already. My apt. had been infected with bedbugs in May, 2013, but by July, 2013 they were gone. Sean, my other roommate who had been living in the premises for more than a year and a half, never complained to me of seeing bedbugs, but in December, after Mark Schulte moved in, he wrote me a note about seeing a bedbug crawling on the wall of his bedroom, which is directly across from the room occupied by Mark Schulte.

Bedbug bites I sustained less than a week after Mark Schulte
brought his belongings into my apartment

Rice dish spilled on the floor for more than 3 months. By the time I got to clean it, it was
so crusted to it, I had to use a scraper. All that time Mark Schulte would be sleeping on the
floor with his head right next to it.

Mark in the process of destroying the air conditioner by piling wet garbage on top of it

After having squat on me for 8 months, causing me over $13,000 in non payment of rent and utilities, damaged property, and legal expenses to have him evicted, that nightmare from hell finally disappeared from my life in early June, just one day before the city marshall was supposed to come and evict him.

In one of the many times I had to go to Housing Court, I was told about a computer on the 2nd floor where I could look up the housing litigation history of anyone in who had lived in NY. When I typed Mark Schulte's name, his list of litigations was 9 or 10 instances long, that I remember. This computer is available for anyone to search on.

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Ever since the publication of this article, Mark Schulte has been going around telling everyone that all the photos in this article have been staged. (See his email to a friend lawyer below.)

I have a second roommate who lived through Mark Schulte's eight months long depredation of my home from his squatting, and who is willing to testify in court that every detail in this article is true.


to Yetta G. Kurland:

Great running into you on the LIRR the other week-end.  It's always fun running into someone "out of context."  You don't necessarily expect to run into your lawyer on her way to a lesbian volleyball competition in Cherry Grove.  Great to chat.

In any case, I would like to meet with you at your convenience next week to discuss filing a lawsuit against misters Miguel Dominguez &/or David Jarrett over issues of cyberbullying, defamation of character, harassment & slander.  The garbage below speaks for itself.  The Tyler Clementi Foundation just this past week-end had a conference at New York Law School & launched an initiative to provide pro bono legal services to victims of cyber attacks.  I certainly plan to speak with them as well.

I know where Dominguez & Jarrett both live so serving papers is no problem.  I could certainly call in connections to perform physical damage if necessary but, at least for the moment, I would prefer to pursue the legal route.


Maybe I will see you at the big legal reception this evening but, otherwise, let's talk next week.  Until then!