A landlord who owned a condo at 165 Henry St. in Manhattan's Lower East Side is facing up to $144,750 in fines for illegally renting out nine micro-apartments, the New York City Department of Buildings said.

On Wednesday, the department sent inspectors to the condo after a complaint alleged that the landlord had erected additional apartments between the fourth and fifth floors.

The inspectors found that the landlord had split the condo horizontally to build nine single-occupancy rooms with 4.5- to 6-foot ceilings.

The situation that investigators stumbled upon was compared to a scene from the 1999 indie film "Being John Malkovich."

Another landlord was discovered to have built a similar schematic on the top floor of the building and is facing fines of up to $139,750.

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The situation that investigators from New York City's Department of Buildings stumbled upon at 165 Henry St. in Manhattan's Lower East Side on Wednesday resembled a scene from the 1999 indie film "Being John Malkovich," City Councilman Ben Kallos said, according to the Daily Mail.

Two Manhattan landlords were found to have constructed and rented illegal sub-units in two properties in the same building until last week, when department personnel responded to a complaint, a representative told INSIDER.

Investigators found an illegally constructed staircase between the two levels of No. 601. At right, an inspector crouches to demonstrate the height of the doors and ceiling in the unit. NYC Department of Buildings

The complaint alleged that a landlord, later identified as Xue Ping Ni, had erected illegal subdivisions in an apartment between the building's fourth and fifth floors.

Investigators discovered that Ni had divided the 634-square-foot unit horizontally to construct nine single-occupancy rooms attached with an illegal staircase, the department said.

The nine units had no windows, sprinklers, or fire-safety systems, posing an immediate risk to their tenants, the department said.

The New York Post reported on Friday that a unit on the top floor of the building, No. 701, belonging to another landlord, Jin Ya Lin, had similar stacked air-conditioning units observable from the street below. Investigators found that the unit had also been converted into nine illegal single-occupancy rooms posing a safety risk to tenants.

The Post reported that on Friday night, as one unnamed tenant left, suitcase in hand, he said he was charged $600 in rent for each month of the past two months he lived in No. 701.

The ceilings in Ni's unit, No. 601, were 4.5 to 6 feet tall, the department said, with short door frames that inspectors had to crouch down on their knees to access. The department said that in addition to illegal structural work, the units had unpermitted electrical and plumbing work.

Kallos compared the low ceilings of the units between the two floors to the scene in "Being John Malkovich" in which John Cusack's character has a job interview on the fictional 7 1/2th floor of a building and has to crouch to enter a short door frame into an equally squat office space.

"This is like the room out of the movie 'Being John Malkovich,'" Kallos said, according to the Daily Mail. "It was funny in fiction, but a horror story in real life."

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The department said it issued Ni 11 violations: one for each room, one for work without a permit, and one for failure to maintain the building. Ni is facing up to $144,750 in fines, with additional daily penalties of $1,000 a room for up to 45 days until the conditions are fixed.

Lin faces 10 violations and fines of up to $139,750.

An inspector inside No. 601. At right, doors to illegally constructed single-occupancy units in No. 701. NYC Department of Buildings

"Every New Yorker deserves a safe and legal place to live, which is why we're committed to routing out dangerous firetraps and ordering the landlords to make these apartments safe," the department told INSIDER in a statement.

"Tenants living in truncated windowless dwelling units like this poses an extreme hazard to their safety, as well as the safety of their neighbors, and first responders. Dangerous living conditions like this cannot be tolerated in our city, and we are holding these landlords accountable for their egregious failure to keep the building safe and livable for tenants."

All the tenants from both condo units were evacuated with assistance from the American Red Cross, the department said.