NEW YORK—Asking tenants to please stop reporting infractions lest they exacerbate the hike, local landlord Matthew Prero confirmed Monday that the building code violation fines he was facing left him with no choice but to raise rents. “Look, I don’t like doing this, either, but my hands are tied here,” said Prero, who explained that although he hated to be “the bad guy,” the mounting cost of state-issued fines was going to result in a $150 monthly rent increase for every tenant in the building. “A small annual rent increase is to be expected, what with fines from the occasional missing smoke detectors and whatnot, but this is just getting out of control. It’s annoying, too, because a lot of these issues just recently cropped up in the past 20 years or so. I already painted the collapsed porch steps—what else do they expect me to do?” At press time, Prero warned that tenants should probably start preparing themselves not to receive their security deposits back, especially if the state ended up taking him to court.