Courtney Love has been accused of “ruining” her rented house, and is now being taken to court by her landlady.
Love has been renting a $27,000-a-month home in the West Village area of New York City, but the owner of the home, Donna Lyon, is not happy with how the rocker has treated her property. Love has now been asked to leave the house.
Lyon’s complaints are varied. She says her famous tenant has redecorated the four-storey house against her will, which Lyon claims has “ruined” the property, previously “made beautiful” by interior designer and former resident Steven Gambrel. It’s fair to say Lyon was not won over by Love’s choice of interior design tastes:
“Courtney has wallpapered and painted a large portion of the property without my consent. I learned about this when I wanted to sell the house and had photographs taken. They sent me the brochure and I said, ‘This can’t be my property.’ I came to New York to see it and I was horrified by what she had done. The walls that had been hand-painted and glazed were ruined, covered in damask wallpaper and ice-blue paint.”
Lyon also says Love is $50,000 behind on her rent, and almost razed the house to the ground when she accidentally set curtains on fire with a candle. “I got a call from her accountant, who said, ‘Miss Love is fine,’ which I was glad to hear, but I thought, ‘What about the house?”’ Lyon told the New York Post .
The landlady says it will take 12 weeks and US$100,000 to restore the home to its original state. Her lawyer Norman Flitt has said Love’s alleged actions are “tantamount to destroying a work of art.”
A court date of December 21 has been set. The rock star’s representative has not commented.
