Sewage water leaching through basement party wall

We own and live in a mult-family row house in Bed-Stuy. The garden level is an occupied rental for which we provide storage and a washer/dryer for that tenant in the basement. We discovered 4 days ago that sewage water has been filtering through the shared basement wall. We contacted the tenants on the ground level to find out what was going on and while they smell the sewage odor, they have no access to their basement. (their landlord/blg manager has pad-locked their basement door, so they can not get down there to see what the problem may be.) We got the manager’s phone and owners phone from one of the tenants and called both. Had to leave a message on the manager’s machine, but I was able to reach the owner personally. While the owner said he was sending his manager over to check it out, the water continues to filter through to our side (three days as of this writing) creating a bad smell and causing damage to the drywall. Who else can we contact to report this and possibly launch the landlord into quicker action. This could be a health hazard.

jmassage58

in Plumbers and Plumbing 11 years and 6 months ago

1

Please log in, in order to post replies!

1 replies

Newest Oldest

resident2 | 11 years and 6 months ago

string(1) "1"
object(WP_User)#4857 (8) {
  ["data"]=>
  object(stdClass)#4876 (12) {
    ["ID"]=>
    string(6) "181002"
    ["user_login"]=>
    string(9) "resident2"
    ["user_pass"]=>
    string(34) "$P$BYKCrEpDU34.3RJghRPk8/Xp1XpCve/"
    ["user_nicename"]=>
    string(9) "resident2"
    ["user_email"]=>
    string(21) "Jamanda1255@Yahoo.com"
    ["user_url"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["user_registered"]=>
    string(19) "2017-08-10 14:07:33"
    ["user_activation_key"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["user_status"]=>
    string(1) "0"
    ["display_name"]=>
    string(9) "resident2"
    ["spam"]=>
    string(1) "0"
    ["deleted"]=>
    string(1) "0"
  }
  ["ID"]=>
  int(181002)
  ["caps"]=>
  array(1) {
    ["bbp_participant"]=>
    bool(true)
  }
  ["cap_key"]=>
  string(15) "wp_capabilities"
  ["roles"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(15) "bbp_participant"
  }
  ["allcaps"]=>
  array(1) {
    ["bbp_participant"]=>
    bool(true)
  }
  ["filter"]=>
  NULL
  ["site_id":"WP_User":private]=>
  int(1)
}

I recently had this issue with a neighbor, except that we are both one family owner occupants. Calling 311 in my case did nothing substantial because although the DEP parked outside my neighbors house for a week try to get access, access was denied while the owner occupants next door kept creeping in out through the back of their building! But the DEP guys did say that if tenants are effected they could do more to force their way in. As two owner occupants, all I could do was take them to court with the records of the DEP. In a multiple dwelling issue it also becomes an HPD issue as well as a DEP issue. Good luck!