BROWNSVILLE, Brooklyn (WABC) — Residents at an apartment building in Brooklyn say they have been forced to get creative since their heat has been out — and that’s not the only issue they’re facing.
There are 80 open violations and 280 complaints that go back two years at 2342 Atlantic Avenue.
Several neighbors invited Eyewitness News inside their homes on Wednesday.
“One time I asked them if we are dogs, because you’re not treating us like human beings,” said tenant Valerie Smith.
From the lack of heat and inconsistent hot water to the rats that eat her food and knock things down at night, Smith says the ongoing problems have been a battle that tenants have been waging for years.
In Roberto Valera’s third-floor apartment, where there is no heat or hot water, he has rigged a dangerous contraption to heat bath water.
And tenant Michelle Campbell said only space heaters and the stove keep her warm. And she got a cat to scare off the rats.
“I’m overwhelmed, I’m exhausted because I barely sleep at night and it’s just too much,” Campbell said. “Sometimes I cry because I’m stressed out.
Campbell said for most of January she has been without heat or hot water and was without any water at all for two days.
“When we got the hot water, the pipe broke, we had no water for like two days and they don’t put the water back on,” she said.
While the exact conditions vary a bit from apartment to apartment, all the tenants that spoke with Eyewitness News said their electric bills are sky-high due to all the alternate sources of heat they are using.
They say the management company is not helping.
“My bill is over a thousand, probably 1,500 by now, and when I told him about it, he said that has nothing to do with him,” Smith said. “So I said, ‘OK, but if it was your guys’ problem, we wouldn’t have had to be boiling water to bathe, buying heat.'”
It’s not an isolated problem. Across the city, there have been 15,000 complaints of no heat between last Friday and Tuesday.
And 5,000 of those complaints include a lack of hot water. Two-thirds of the complaints are still open and being investigated.
Back at 2342 Atlantic Avenue, tenants say the only thing thriving are the rats inside the bins – many with broken lids.
The Department of Buildings says it has received multiple complaints about the building and inspectors are on the way.
A spokesperson with Housing Preservation and Development released the following statement:
“Every New Yorker deserves a safe and warm place to call home and HPD’s enforcement team takes that responsibility extremely seriously, especially as the city faces frigid temperatures. HPD is aware of the issue at 2342 Atlantic Avenue and has been working with the management company to rectify the situation.
Eyewitness News has reached out to JSAF Management several times on Wednesday for a statement but we have not yet heard back.
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