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Claustrophobic Woman Trapped by Broken Doorknob in Her Apartment Is Freed

By Gwynne Hogan | June 21, 2016 11:23am
 Nyisha Fields, 45, a resident of the Williamsburg Houses who was promised a fixed doorknob in a court settlement with New York City Housing Authority last November, is still struggling with the dud knob, getting locked inside her apartment about once a week, she says.
Faulty Doorknob Traps Claustrophobic Woman
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WILLIAMSBURG — A claustrophobic Brooklyn woman intermittently held prisoner inside her own apartment due to a defective doorknob is finally free to come and go as she pleases — eight months after the city housing authority agreed to fix the front door.

Nyisha Fields, 45, who has suffered panic attacks and fear of confined spaces ever since she was trapped in an elevator as a 10-year-old girl, battled with NYCHA to replace the dud knob beginning in 2013 until Monday afternoon when a phone call to the housing authority from DNAinfo New York prompted the repair.

NYCHA was supposed to fix the doorknob on her Williamsburg Houses apartment following a court settlement last November and repairmen came to tinker with the door, but within a few days of the repair, it would be broken again, she said. 

"I get stuck and I'm scared to be in the house cause I suffer through panic attacks," Fields said. She was prescribed Paxil and Seroquel for her anxiety at a recent visit to Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center, medical records show.

For three years, Fields would get trapped and would wait for someone she knows to pass by on the sidewalk below so she could toss her keys down from her second-floor window and beg them to come let her out, she said.

"It's just frustrating when I can't get out of my house," she said. "I feel like I'm having a heart attack. It's just crazy, I can't breathe, seems like my house is closing in."

As part of the State Supreme Civil Court settlement over a rent dispute with NYCHA from last November, the agency agreed to fix the doorknob, court records show.

But more than eight months since the settlement, she was still battling with the broken doorknob until Monday afternoon, despite multiple visits from repairmen, she said.

Fields said she didn't know any handymen who could help her out and her lawyer said if she paid the repair herself she'd have no outlet to get the money discounted from her rent.

Fields, who grew up in the Kingsborough Houses in Crown Heights, has struggled with claustrophobia since she was 10 years old and she and a friend got trapped in an elevator there for nearly an hour on a hot summer day.

"By the time the fire department got us out we were already dehydrated," she said.

Since then it doesn't take much to trigger her phobia.

"My panic attacks start up quick," she said. "Like when I'm struggling to get out [of] my house you know... I start panicking real quick."

Fields could not visit her son or her mother who both live in apartments nearby, but on the 11th and 12th floors, which would require her to take the elevator.

"I have to use the bathroom with the door open," Fields said. "That's how bad [it is]."

Fields' faulty doorknob had begun to trigger her claustrophobia as far back as 2013, she said, though it's been getting worse in recent months.

"I just need a new doorknob," Fields said. "I just need to get in and out of my house."

On a recent inspection two months ago, when Fields got a new smoke detector, the repairman who came to her apartment even had a doorknob with him but wouldn't replace hers, Fields said.

"He had a new knob right there. I thought I was getting a new doorknob," Field said. But like the repairmen who had come before him, he insisted all the knob needed was to be tightened. 

"It's stripped," she said she told him. "[You're] like the forth or fifth person who came here to do that — the same thing you're doing now."

Fields' lawyer Beth Baltimore with Legal Services NYC said she was saddened but not surprised that such a minute fix with such deep psychological impact on her client took so long.

"I think it's unfortunate that there are ... people responsible for making these repairs who don't seem to care about people's health and well being," Baltimore said. "[They] don't see any urgency."

Following a DNAinfo inquiry into the issue of the broken doorknob, NYCHA sent a repairman with a new knob to Fields' home on Maujer Street within a matter of hours.

“Ensuring residents feel safe in their homes is NYCHA’s No. 1 priority," said NYCHA spokeswoman Zodet Negron. "Staff visited the apartment tonight and installed a new doorknob. We apologize for the impact this has had on the resident.”