Students Sue for Rent Gouging at Local Apartment

Accusing their landlord of charging rent for unborn babies and departed visitors, a Harvard graduate student and three research fellows last night filed suit for $13,476 damages against the management of a Cambridge apartment house.

The plaintiffs, Abraham Woll 1G, and Research Fellows in Medicine Dr. Charles S. Wise, Dr. Martin Perimutter, and Dr. Andrei de Vries claim that the Riverside Hotel not only assessed illegal rental overcharges in the past year, but also allegedly refused both to change daily rates to a cheaper monthly basis and to return sums of money deposited as security.

Claim Security Withhold

"They would sometimes charge us over $100 a month by figuring their rates on a daily basis," the plaintiffs claimed, "when the actual charge per month was only $55. On other occasions, bonds which has been given to guarantee payment of rents would not be returned if the prospective tenant was unable to move in.

More than $4000 of excess rents have been demanded and received from them and from 25 other occupants since December 1 1946, the students stated. Under the law they are entitled to recover three times that amount.

All four are members of a tenant's committee that has been investigating the alleged violatons since last October.