Community Corner
No Comment From 'Slumlord' Who Turned Off Old Ladies' Heat: NYC Story Of The Week
An 80-year-old in a freezing apartment. A mom who can't have her kids home for holidays. A blasé landlord. It's the NYC story of the week.
CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — Of all the stories Patch editors covered for our 28 neighborhood news sites in NYC this week, one stood out as especially disturbing: the story of a group of longtime tenants at 80 New York Ave. who have been living without heat for the past two winters.
Here's what we wrote this week about their battle for heat:
- Crown Heights Tenants Say They Haven't Had Heat For 2 Years
- Battle For Heat In Crown Heights Apartments 'Grinding, Slow'
- Mom Whose Landlord Cut Off Heat Can't Host Christmas, Thanksgiving Anymore
- Getting Screwed By Your Landlord? 5 Things You Can Do To Fight Back
One of the affected tenants — Lisa Mathis, 56 — has a love for her building that dates back to childhood. Mathis lived at 80 New York Ave. when she was a young girl growing up in Brooklyn, and moved back into Apartment No. 1 when she was in her 40s.
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But in 2015, the building's management company, Gold Management, changed home life as Mathis and other longtime tenants knew it. The company illegally ripped the central boiler out of their building — then installed individual heaters in only the units of the building that had been renovated.
This inhumane setup has been in place for two winters now. Tenants have shivered through the city's largest-ever snowstorm and many nights on which temperatures have dipped into the single digits.
Find out what's happening in New York Cityfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The units without heat include Apartment No. 2, where Mathis' 80-year-old aunt lives.
The owner of the building, Chananya Gold, and his company's attorney, Arun Perinbasekar, haven't bothered to respond to Patch's repeated requests for comment over the past week about why an 80-year-old woman has had to suffer through two winters with no heat.
Again, this has been our coverage so far:
- Crown Heights Tenants Say They Haven't Had Heat For 2 Years
- Battle For Heat In Crown Heights Apartments 'Grinding, Slow'
- Mom Whose Landlord Cut Off Heat Can't Host Christmas, Thanksgiving Anymore
- Getting Screwed By Your Landlord? 5 Things You Can Do To Fight Back
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