By PAUL LIOTTA

and MAURA GRUNLUND

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Just days after a New Dorp Beach landlord hung a large sign outside her home proclaiming "Beware! Drug Dealers Downstairs," authorities conducted a raid and arrested two sisters on drug-sale charges.

Linda and Christine Genise, both 52, are being arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on Friday after they were apprehended on Thursday afternoon in the vicinity of their apartment on the 100 block of Roma Avenue by the NYPD Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Strike Force.

The sisters both are charged with various counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance and criminal possession of a controlled substance, according to the city Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor.

Authorities allege that the duo peddled drugs that included oxycodone and heroin to an undercover officer on three occasions in February and earlier this month from their first-floor apartment.

A search of their apartment on Thursday yielded heroin and methadone, according to the prosecutor's office.

The development comes as a relief to their landlord, who said she felt helpless as she tried to get the women out of her home due to the alleged drug activity.

The sisters' landlord, Donna, who declined to have her full name published, this week put two warning signs outside her Roma Avenue home -- one in front of the house, and one above the entrance to the apartment.

"Beware! Drug Dealers Downstairs. Stay Away!" the signs drawn with red marker on white poster board said.

The photos began to go viral on several Facebook watch groups devoted to Staten Island.

"I took matters into my own hands," the landlord said.

When authorities showed up on Thursday afternoon and took the women away, Donna said she removed the signs.

"I'm a lot more relieved," the landlord said. "I feel like I got a whole bunch of stuff off my shoulders, I can tell you that much."

OUT OF OPTIONS

Donna was unsure about putting the signs up in the first place -- her lawyer even advised her to take them down, but she felt like she was out of options, she said.

The suspects moved into the house four years ago after Hurricane Sandy, Donna said.

They had been living at a hotel in Midland Beach after their home was wiped out in the storm, and Donna said she invited them to rent out the downstairs apartment.

"I like helping people," she said.

The first few years the family lived in the house were ideal, Donna and her husband said, but then things started to go downhill.

Donna has images from a surveillance system set up at her house that show people coming and going from the downstairs apartment at all hours of the day.

"The whole neighborhood calls my house 'the heroin house,'" Donna said. "That's not fair to my family."

Her worries don't end at what her neighbors call her house, Donna said.



On several occasions she's had to worry about the safety of her eight-year-old daughter, and her two-year-old son, who has Down syndrome.

Several incidents when her family was put in danger stuck out in Donna's mind.

A fire in November started downstairs, and a person came to the house with a sledgehammer and damaged walls in the apartment, she said.

After spending several hours at the 122nd Precinct stationhouse in New Dorp Tuesday night to see what could be done, Donna said she needed to go to the hospital, because she was having heart palpitations.

"I think it's from the stress of dealing with everything," she said.