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Elderly Cancer Survivor Facing Eviction From Rent-Stabilized Apartment

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- She beat cancer, but now a woman who put her rent-stabilized apartment on AirBnB to make ends meet is faced with losing her home.

For more than 40 years, 70-year-old Linda Lipetz has been calling the Greenwich Village apartment her home.

"I have no place to go, so I'm just sitting here waiting for the marshals to take everything and throw me in the street," she tells CBS2's Erin Logan.

Since 2012, she says her landlord has wanted her gone.

"I did everything morally and trustworthy that the building asked me for," she said.

On Tuesday, three out of five judges in a Manhattan Appellate Court disagreed, siding with her landlord that Lipetz was making a big profit over an 18 month period.

Lipetz was diagnosed with cancer in 2010 and says she couldn't even afford her subsidized rent, so she needed help.

A friend told her about AirBnB, which was relatively new at the time. Lipetz says as soon as the landlord told her to stop in 2012, she did.

"I did nothing wrong," she said.

Her attorney, Fred Seeman, says she's accused of profiting about  $12,000 in excess of hr $21,000 per year rent for her one bedroom apartment. Lipetz says it was much less.

"My profit was about $3,000," she said.

Seeman says that the $3,000 was for paying bills and groceries. She was sharing everything with renters.

CBS2 asked the Rent Stabilization Association what the rules were when it comes to renting out your apartment in the state of New York.

"You can sublet your apartment on a long-term basis by getting the landlord's approval, but to run it as a hotel when charging nightly rates on a transient basis, that is not allowed," Mitchell Posilkin from the association said.

Lipetz's attorney says the bottom line is that this doesn't warrant eviction -- more so a notice to cure, or fix, the problem.

CBS2 has placed multiple calls to the landlord's attorney without response. Lipetz's attorney says they plan to appeal the decision.

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