Neighbor building illegal/shoddy addition rooms and running flophouse

My neighbor has been running a makeshift flophouse in their building and doing illegal/scary building. They chopped up all the floors and have different people crammed in there. They make tons of noise and they have total disregard for surrounding neighbors. The owners are unresponsive to complaints from us and also from city council/city inspectors. Recently the have been building an illegal/shoddy additional room in the back — looks dangerous in terms of construction and electrical wiring. They have been also building tiny rooms in basement at night. No permits visible anywhere. I have called 311 many times but no response from DOB on stopping them. Any recommendations? Would appreciate any help. Thanks ahead.

ronaldis

in Building Code 9 years and 5 months ago

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laurena.donner | 9 years and 4 months ago

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Go on the DOE website and find out if this is a one family house, a two family house or a SRO , then if they don’t have a permit as an SRO , walk to the fire department in your hood and make a complaint there that this house is a fire trap and that it is overcrowded and an illegal SRO ( if that is the case). They most likely will take your complaint and come to the house for an inspection, if they find a lot of violations then the fire department will call the DOE, when this happens, the DOE comes in 20 minutes and they inspect the house, They may even shut down the house if the fire department recommends it. This happened to me, my neighbor was running an illegal SRO and the fire dep., in conjunction with the DOE shut down his housed and put a vacant order on it. You may get lucky…..

evfred | 9 years and 4 months ago

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Contact your City Councilmember. Better yet, have all your neighbors contact your Councilmember. If your Councilmember is worth anything (some are, some less so), you may get action from the DOB.

delessert | 9 years and 4 months ago

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You could also try calling 3-1-1 and asking for the complaint to be directed to the OSE (Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement) who investigate multiple violations across different departments, including city and state laws.

argylerd | 9 years and 5 months ago

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In addition the the Community Board a call to your local fire house may be worthwhile. They don’t want to enter such a deathtrap in case of fire and can inspect the building and shut it down.

JohnHancock | 9 years and 5 months ago

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You need to call the inspector general of the buildings dept. 212 825 2413 building special unit 212 825 3330

dnk | 9 years and 5 months ago

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You can indeed attach pictures to a 311 online complaint. For a building construction complaint: . http://www1.nyc.gov/nyc-resources/service/1270/building-construction-complaint . It’s not until the 4th step in the process (the “Submit” tab) that you actually get the opportunity to upload images, but you can do so — up to 3 files. They accept video files as well.

slopefarm | 9 years and 5 months ago

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You need to get higher up at DOB. Also, there could be issues HPD would care about. Community Board worth a shot — some are effective, some not so much. I’ve never tried this, but I think you can do 311 on line — i am wondering if you can attach pictures to an online 311 complaint.

Arkady | 9 years and 5 months ago

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Try asking your community board about it – they’d know where to go for help.