My Sister Has a Problem with her Landlord, help!

[Francisco Feliz]

Hey BP,

So, my sister seems to have encountered one of those landlords that @Joshua Dorkin always talks about giving everyone else in this business bad names. She is a college student in Alfred, NY (upstate) and her off-campus housing landlord is apparently always extremely rude to her, hanging up on her, and never helpful. Up until now, I've just described personality defects about which nothing legal can likely be done; however, while she was home in NYC for break (where we are from), her landlord told her that he literally broke open into her bedroom because she forgot to leave the heat on and the pipes could freeze. He said that he has no obligation to fix her door and that he's going to leave it like that because she should have known better. Setting aside the fact that she's from the city and a young college student and so doesn't know about pipes freezing, can he really get away with breaking down her door? The issue here, in particular, is that the building side entrance door is very fragile and easy to shoulder through into the dwelling at which point her now unlocked/broken bedroom can allow for anyone to steal her stuff. She had originally requested that the landlord install that lock on her bedroom door (there wasn't one before) precisely bc of the fragility of that property entrance, and now he broke the bedroom door down. 

In Massachusetts, where I am, there's a court ruling that says that landlords must keep "all means of egress at all times in a safe, operable condition." Is there such a thing that she can look for? Does it apply here? Is there anything she can do like call the city or is the landlord really in the right here? The best part is that he's also apparently an attorney and the cops know him...

[Russell Brazil]

She should just move, plain and simple.