Apartment left gutted for months—should we be worried?

Would love some advice! I live in a 9-apartment condo built circa 1890s. In January the basement apartment next to mine was flooded with several inches of water that sat for at least a week before the owner discovered the situation. She had the entire kitchen ripped out, removed the damaged Sheetrock down to the original brick on the shared wall with our apartment, and had a company that specializes in this clean and inspect for mold damage (they found no mold).

I recently discovered that the apartment is still gutted and empty, and there don’t seem to be any plans to rebuild anytime soon. Is there any risk to the overall health of the building if the apartment is left in that state indefinitely? Wondering if our condo board needs to step in. Thanks for any input!

tommyg

in General Discussion 6 years ago

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stevecym | 5 years and 11 months ago

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let me comment about something here as someone who worked in buildings and was part of the fire safety team and in charge of ensuring that fire codes were being followed. as professional managers, we NEVER called the enforcement agencies to ask them anything. its not that we were expected to know, we didn’t always and good companies send their staff to classes or in our case we carried certificates of fitness from the FDNY. we never called because we did not want to raise any eyebrows and have them think something might be amiss in our building. if you are in a big building and my guess is, this can happen in a residential building, you never know if someone in the DOB or FDNY or DEP has an axe to grind for some reason, and a phone call might just bring unwanted attention. my boss even said this to me once when i was sent down to fight some FDNY violations which had either been corrected or we felt were not warrented “don’t push the judge too hard on this; we have to let them (the FDNY) win something here and if we beat them on everything we will have fire inspectors crawling all over this building”. we stayed away from them at all costs.

stevecym | 5 years and 11 months ago

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i would not go to the fire house. if you go to the fire house, you risk drawing their attention and it could back fire you you (you could shoot yourself in the foot so to say).

BKALLDAY | 5 years and 11 months ago

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I don’t think there is a law saying they have to frame it out but stevecym brings up a good point about the rapid spread of a fire. Go to your local CB and go to your local fire house and ask those lovely men advice on how to get them to pay attention to the space.

yudashasom | 5 years and 11 months ago

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Board step in to do what? Help the other owner fight w/ the insurance company? Do the renovation work for the owner?

stevecym | 5 years and 11 months ago

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if a fire breaks out in a space that does not have rock up, it will spread a bit faster.

BKALLDAY | 5 years and 11 months ago

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On one hand Critters. On the other hand if there is nothing warm, moist or to eat then no critters.