Court-Appointed Receiver Offers No Relief For Tenants Without Heat, Hot Water In Brooklyn Building In Foreclosure

In Brooklyn, New York, the Daily News reports:

• Their Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment building is in foreclosure - and these tenants are feeling forsaken. Tenants at 874 Greene Ave. have suffered for months without heat or hot water even though a court-appointed receiver hired a managing company to make repairs and collect rents. "The only way I get heat is to turn the stove on," said Paulette Walker, 36, who lives in her freezing fourth-floor apartment with her husband and 13-year-old son, Jacob. "I boil water for the steam, turn on the grill and let the burners go."

• The eight-unit building has been without heat or hot water since the boiler, which has broken countless times, failed again, tenants said. Even their original landlord had a better track record than BPC Management when it came to making repairs, they added. The tenants charge that BPC Management has ignored complaints about the broken boiler, roach infestations and even a leaking roof.

• "They don't listen; they don't care," said Natasha Favorite, 25, who is eight months pregnant and lives on the second floor with her 3-year-old son, Adonis. "I'm sick of being in this house with no heat and no hot water." Favorite said she has complained to BPC at least 10 times over the past year. Angry tenants in the building have lodged 65 complaints with the Housing Preservation and Development Department since last February. They are working with organizers from Pratt Area Community Council, who are trying to negotiate a timeline for improvements and repairs.

• "This is the complication of foreclosures," said PACC organizing director Elana Shneyer. "The tenants haven't done anything [wrong], but they get caught in the middle ... without basic services." A BPC Management spokesperson declined to comment. "We can't even bathe the way we want to bathe," said Walker, an unemployed security guard who dumps six big cooking pots full of boiling water into the tub and adds cold water to take a bath. "We really shouldn't have to live this way."

Source: Every tenant's nightmare: No heat, hot water for months in Brooklyn apartment that's in foreclosure.