Among the least shocking Trump-family revelations of the past year: the New York City Council launched an investigation into Kushner Companies, the firm once run by the President’s son-in-law, for what one council member described as “the weaponization of construction.” Step 1: Buy a building full of rent-stabilized tenants who are paying below market rate. Step 2: Bang and drill until they leave.

“The Kushners are just one of many, many predatory landlords,” Noelle Francois said recently. It was the Monday after a cold snap, and Francois, who is thirty-one and lives in Bushwick, was in a brick apartment building in East Flatbush, protecting people against another weapon of bad landlords: turning down the heat. City law requires apartments to be at least sixty-eight degrees during the day and sixty-two at night. But heat violations can be tricky to prove. Francois’s nonprofit, Heat Seek, installs temperature sensors inside tenants’ apartments. The sensor takes a reading each hour and stores the data online, for use in lawsuits or in written complaints.

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N’Jelle Murphy, a tenant living in a rent-stabilized apartment on the fifth floor, said that the building’s manager had been turning down the heat late at night. She’d file 311 complaints from her iPad after midnight, but city inspectors came during the day. “They’d come with their thermostat, like, ‘Oh, the temperature’s fine.’ I’m, like, ‘Yeah, because the heat’s on now!’ ” She went on, “So I said, ‘Let me get Heat Seek, so that I have proof.’ ” It was forty-four degrees outside. Murphy, a legal secretary, sat on her bed, wearing leg warmers and two sweaters. She has lupus, a disease that affects her lungs, kidneys, and joints, and the cold aggravates her condition.

Francois, who is petite and blondish, sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor fiddling with the sensor, a small black box, like an oversized Lego. “The landlord knew they were coming!” she said. (The city notifies building owners before checking on heat complaints.) “The only way they get caught is if an inspector shows up and the building is currently in violation. And there’s someone to let him in. And he can get into an apartment, not just the lobby. Then he’ll issue a violation—maybe. Or he’ll decide, ‘Eh, it’s sixty-six. Close enough.’ ”

Francois pulled a laptop out of her bag. “You have Wi-Fi, right?”

“Yeah,” Murphy said, handing over a Post-it with the log-in credentials. She’d lived in the building for more than twenty years, she said. “I grew up here. This management took over about ten years ago. The old management never had any problems. But now sometimes I’m sleeping in a hat!”

Francois stood up and handed Murphy a form. “This is the tenant agreement,” she said. She pointed to a spot by the door. “Should I put it right there? Is that good?”

“You could put it a little lower,” Murphy said.

Francois mounted the sensor, then applied a strip of shiny tamper tape to its base. “If you rip it off, it leaves a residue,” she explained. “If there’s no residue, we can say we know they didn’t stick it outside, or put it in the freezer, or whatever people think tenants do to make it seem colder.”

Francois said goodbye to Murphy and went down the hall to collect a sensor from another Heat Seek customer, an accountant named Cleveland John. (Tenants can buy a sensor for a hundred and thirty-nine dollars or borrow one for free during the cold months.)

“How’s it going?” Francois asked when John opened the door, wearing a pin-striped shirt. He said that, like Murphy, he’d been having heat problems since the building’s management changed. (The Flatbush Tenant Coalition filed a lawsuit last year, using data from Heat Seek.) John invited Francois into the living room. “It was awfully cold,” he said, handing over the sensor. “But it’s been better since we started this.”

“Well, if it gets bad again, give me a call,” Francois said. She glanced at the television, where a rerun of “The Office” was playing. “I love this show!”

John said that he did, too. “You know, you messed with me. I just missed a good ending!”

A wind stirred outside, and John pointed to the window. “You feel a draft coming through here?” He shook his head. “I told super. But I’m an old man now—I stopped fighting. I leave that to the younger folks.”

“Unbelievable,” Francois said, of the window. Then she left to catch a bus back to Bushwick. ♦