No Water for Two Months in Bed-Stuy Building
The residents at 274 Malcolm X Boulevard in Bed-Stuy have gone nearly two months without running water, ever since a pipe sprung a leak in July and the city shut it off. The Daily News reports that the city would not turn the water back on until the landlord repairs the pipe, but the landlord,…
The residents at 274 Malcolm X Boulevard in Bed-Stuy have gone nearly two months without running water, ever since a pipe sprung a leak in July and the city shut it off. The Daily News reports that the city would not turn the water back on until the landlord repairs the pipe, but the landlord, Carl Plata, died last year. Tenants of the eight units now get their water from a hydrant across the street. Connie Peters, 57, told the News: “I’m pulling my hair out. We need water.” The Department of Environmental Protection insisted that the water had to be shut off, but the Department of Housing Preservation and Development said it would repair the pipe. According to spokesman Eric Bederman, the agency has hired a contractor and work will begin once it receives a permit. The News also points out that other problems have plagued this particular building: last winter, the electricity was shut off due to illegal wiring. Additionally, a partial vacate order exists for the building due to an illegal conversion of the second and third floors. GMAP P*Shark DOB
No Water for Two Months! [NY Daily News]
Photo by Gregg Snodgrass/PropertyShark
MM – maybe the reason I missunderstand you is because you arent clear???
YOU said “The rental practices of lower end properties is not like dealing with Blackberry and I-Phone wielding Corcoran and Halstead agents.”
To which I replied that you are wrong – many low end (lets say below $350 a room) buildings are EXACTLY like dealing with a “corcoran/halstead” type professional.
Now you change your point to say – well many of these type of renters cant access that level of sophistication. which is a different point to which I say…..
In my experience (pretty extensive) in this area, you are only partially correct – the (hlepless) people you describe are not simply “poor” ( most working poor people are well aware of and have some access to computers, craigslist, other information, etc…..)
This other world you describe is EXACTLY what I described – which is generally people who have problems well beyond just not having alot of money. And if those people are living here it is a shame and the city should be held to task (especially those agencies that are suppossed to be looking after the welfare of these tyoe of people)…
But there is another world – one that you apparently dont know about – where people have the capacity to move but chose not to because they figure that a free (or nearly free apartment) with no services (although usually water) is better than paying full price.
I do not know what is going on here – but based on what I know – I have my suspicions that the majority of tenants arent as helpless as you would have us believe. BTW it doesnt make it ok – but it also doesnt mean that the tenants here all have no choice but to live in an absolute slum
MM- all true. Not to mention, it takes money to move, big buck if you don’t have much in the first place. It’s so interesting to see how immediately certain people assume the people in this building are not paying rent and because they are poor somehow deserve their situation.
Craigslist? How many landlords would rent to someone without soc sec #’s, credit checks, references (try getting one from a dead landlord), etc. It’s a whole process and plenty of people – whether or not they pay their rent every month and are good tenants- will not fulfill all the criteria. Responsible, reliable working class folk fall through the cracks all the time and those who deny it are willfully looking the other way.
fsrg, as usual, you miss my point. Renters in many of these ratholes don’t own a computer, let along have ever heard of Craigslist. Neither you, nor a majority of middle class working folks, are the people who end up in the kinds of buildings that get shown on a segment of “Shame on You”.
I think the assumption that the renters were not paying rent even before the landlord died is rather presumptuous and prejudicial, and assumes facts not in evidence. If they stopped paying after he died and after they lost all water to the building, that’s certainly not anything that anyone else, including many readers here, would not have done, as well. The difference being that many readers here have the wherewithal to contact a lawyer, or even google their rignts and responsibilities, that is not an option all people have. You are coming at this from your at least middle class perspective. There is a whole other world operating out there.
MM- I dont know what you consider lower-end; but Craigslist is filled with many sub $1000mo apartments; and speaking from experience, no one cares what you look like and you only need 1mo security –
but YES you will have to show adequate income and good credit and rental payment history….and many of the LL/agents carry Blackberries, and have websites showing pictures of the aaialbe apartments.
I am not saying that people who have issues (unemployment, bad credit, drug abuse, mental illness, etc…) arent sometimes forced into substandard housing – they are – and it is disgusting…..but the idea that some regular working class person is forced to live under these type of conditions due to a lack of options is just ill informed.
Umm – I’ll guarantee you – that NONE of the tenants in the building are paying their DEAD landlord ANY rent (and probably many/most werent paying b/4 either)- so for a free place to live – it might not be so bad…
so to summarize, the city shut off the water because a pipe was broken. After the city was informed the landlord was dead, the city said it would fix the pipe as soon as the city got the proper permits from the city. Luckily, the city stated that it is doing everything in it power to expedite the process.
Geesh, jump through a bunch of bureaucratic hoops much?
So frustrating. The city clearly has more than enough resources to sort this out but the unfortunate tenants are stuck in a bureaucratic morass.
I agree that it’s the city should by rights be able to recover costs from the estate of the landlord in such a case. But the fact that it’s the landlord’s fault is no excuse for not helping the tenants first.
Stargazer, I’m sorry, but you really have no clue as to what poverty is like. Not everyone can afford to live in great buildings to begin with, and by logical extension, moving out, and all the expenses that are incurred by doing so, is not all that easy either. 2 months security, even more if you look a little less prosperous, and the landlord doesn’t trust you, which most don’t, plus the cost of packing up and moving. The rental practices of lower end properties is not like dealing with Blackberry and I-Phone wielding Corcoran and Halstead agents. A lot of landlords in crappy buildings get away with alot because their tenants are poor, ill informed of their rights, and yes, some are lousy tenants.
Regarding this situation, it would take one of the tenants being a strong leader, savvy in the by byzantine operations, and turtle like movings of city agencies to get anything done, unless they managage to get some well needed attention from the media and local pols. It’s really a sad commentary that the only way to affect change anymore is not to call 311, but the city desk of some form of news media.
Wow, this is on the block directly behind me.