For the first time since the passage of the first anti-harassment housing law, a comprehensive review of those laws and their applicability, purpose, penalties, and dates of effectiveness have been explained and analyzed in detail. The authors have sought to educate practitioners and their clients on this vastly misunderstood body of law. One of the most far ranging and most amended areas of New York City landlord-tenant law is the regulation of what constitutes "harassment" in the residential context.

A look at the current ordinance shows that there is a wide variety of prohibited conduct and, by the numbering scheme, a complex history of amendment. When a tenant brings a harassment suit for which allegations span over a period of years, the court examines both when the alleged misconduct took place and whether that particular behavior was forbidden at the time alleged by the tenant.