June 27, 2023 / By mobanmarket
CROWN HEIGHTS — Elana Rinsler woke up Feb. 7 like she had any other morning, but her bleary eyes quickly spotted danger: smoke billowing from her apartment’s floor.
She grabbed her two dogs and ran.
Hours after firefighters put out the blaze that devastated her home of 12 years, Rinsler sat amid the wreckage and waited for someone from her building’s management company, Hager Management, to even “pretend to care” about her well-being, she said.
She’s still waiting. Hager’s representatives sent her off with no financial support or guidance, she said.
“We literally were made homeless,” Rinsler said. “It’s been terrible, it’s been a lot.”
The fire came after years of sewage leaks, cockroach infestations and neglect, according to accounts by Rinsler and other tenants, as well as many public property records. Subsequent months without gas and failed efforts to sit down with building managers prompted tenants to take a drastic measure to restore safety to their building: a rent strike.
“The fire is just the cherry on f—— top of years of neglect,” Rinsler said. “It was the fire that lit the tenant’s association to finally get [organized].”
“It’s sad that we have to do this at all,” said seven-year tenant Colin Jacubczyk. “We want what all people deserve.”
Hager Management representatives — who are facing a connected rent strike at a second Brooklyn building — did not respond to Patch’s requests for comment.
The tenants are asking for management to meet them with respect, clear communication and a swift solution to the gas issues.
Tenants will explore obtaining collective control of the building, said organizers with Brooklyn Eviction Defense, a borough-wide tenant union organizing tenants across Hager’s properties.
The fire started Feb. 7 in the kitchen of what FDNY officials described as a basement or cellar apartment and spread primarily to two first-floor apartments.
Rinsler luckily escaped when she spotted the smoke during her morning trip to the bathroom. Her neighbor in the second apartment destroyed by the fire had surgery the day the blaze kindled and spread.
Gas, water and electricity were all shut off to contain the fire, according to an FDNY incident report. Tenants in the building told Patch they were without heat for six days and without water and electricity for about 24 hours with minimal communication from management.
In a March 21 message to residents, management representatives said the fire was an “unforeseen accident.” They added that the tenants’ anger was not appreciated.
“We understand that some of you are frustrated by the inconvenience we experienced after the fire. Let us make it clear, this was an unforeseen accident. We feel some tenants over-reacted and it is not appreciated,” management wrote in the message.
Tenants and organizers claim the apartment where the fire originated was illegally occupied.
A city buildings department spokesperson could not confirm to Patch whether the building at 170 New York Ave. had an illegal unit without an investigation.
Below-ground units fall into two categories — cellar and basement — both of which have caused safety concerns citywide, according to a 2022 report from comptroller Brad Lander.
The buildings department spokesperson said most cellar units are illegal, and basement units are legal if up to code and listed on the building’s Certificate of Occupancy. The building’s most recent Certificate of Occupancy from the 1960s lists a cellar floor, but no basement.
But the below-ground apartment was not the only safety hazard, residents contend.
No fire alarms went off in Rinsler’s apartment, despite the flames bursting through the floor, she said. She now wonders if there were ever working fire alarms in her long-time home.
The fire has caused significant financial and logistical issues for the building’s many senior and disabled residents, 30-year resident Virginia Simmonds said.
Hager Management provided some residents with small hotplates to cook, and that’s about it, Simmonds said.
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“We can’t prepare a family meal,” Simmonds said.
Rinsler was one of two units at 170 New York Ave. displaced by the fire. She returned for the first time Sunday and her next-door neighbor — the one who had surgery the day the fire kindled — was expected to return later in the week.
In the March message to residents, management seemingly said tenants would see a 10 percent reduction on rent for the period of time they did not have proper kitchen usage — something Rinsler said has not been reflected on rent invoices.
Rinsler said despite promising weeks ago, management only followed up on fixing her damaged front door after Sunday’s rally.
Since the fire, management and other authorities have been “passing the buck,” leaving residents confused and without answers despite continued efforts, said Community Advocate Development Organization Director Burchell Marcus.
One of residents’ key concerns is restoring gas to the building — tenants have been without cooking gas for months now, residents said.
Some residents, like Simmonds, have still been paying for gas despite having no gas service.
A representative of National Grid told Patch that gas service was restored to 170 New York Ave. on Feb. 17 and the agency has not been aware of any outages since.
In the March message to tenants, titled “Great News,” property managers said that gas-powered heating had already safely restored, but cooking gas service would require the installation of new gas lines throughout the building.
To avoid extra cost, gas-related safety risks and time-intensive repairs, management said it would instead switch the building over to electric appliances.
But Rinsler questioned the sincerity of management’s motives given — the tenant’s association responded to the notice with detailed questions about cost implications and health risks of construction and has not heard back, she said.
And, despite management’s claims that electric appliances will lower tenants’ costs, Simmonds said she was told the switch could result in a monthly rent increase.
Property records show NYC’s Buildings department in April issued 170 New York Ave. a violation because the owner had not filed its annual inspection report for its low-pressure boiler. A representative of the department said the building’s owner hired a plumber for boiler work earlier this year — repairs that seemingly started around March as well, records show.
Tenants said HPD officials visited the apartment Tuesday, seemingly to investigate whether gas service had been actually restored as previously reported.
HPD officials confirmed at least one apartment was paying for gas without having a supply of cooking gas, according to documents obtained by Patch and Brooklyn Eviction Defense tenant-organizers.
Since the fire, residents have made at least seven formal complaints about the gas with NYC’s Housing, Preservation & Development department, and all but one have been marked as “closed.”
“The Department of Housing Preservation and Development contacted an occupant of the apartment and verified that the following conditions were corrected,” the status reads on the closed HPD complaints.
But any insinuation that the gas issues have been resolved is “a lie,” Simmonds said.
HPD officials did not respond to Patch’s requests for comment.
In April, a formal complaint was made to the Department of Buildings regarding long-standing electrical concerns at the apartment. Records show inspectors went to the apartment on April 7 and 23 to inspect, but were not granted access to the building.
Simmonds and Marcus also took issue with any assertion that residents were not cooperating.
Hager Management owns multiple buildings in NYC and is facing another rent strike at 281 Crown Street, also organized with the Brooklyn Eviction Defense tenant union.
“This is something I’m seeing across the borough,” said Marcus.
City Council Member Chi Ossé, the only elected official at Sunday’s rally, agreed the tenants’ experience was indicative of a city-wide “landlord regime that is brutalizing” tenant livelihoods.
“I’m sick and tired of living in a city where we hear on the news every day that crime is happening on a vast scale. We’re hearing people take shampoo from Walgreens, we’re hearing people jump the turnstiles — that’s the crime that Eric Adams talks about,” Ossé said. “The real crime are these landlords and management companies that are making you live in these conditions.”
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