WASHINGTON HEIGHTS — Tenants in a building for low-income residents who went without gas, heat and hot water this month said their landlord did little to make up for the loss of services — and hasn't offered any rent rebates.
Residents of the Salyer House at 560 W. 165th St. — a 146-unit building that provides housing for families, the elderly, formerly homeless people and those living with HIV or AIDS — said that they went without gas from April 2 to April 24.
The entire building lost heat and hot water for the first week, while 20 units remained without cooking gas for three weeks, tenants and the building’s owner said.
In addition, the building’s laundry room was closed for the duration of the process, they said.
The nonprofit organization that owns and operates the building, Volunteers of America, didn't offer alternatives like hot plates to tenants without stoves, saying they could have overloaded electrical outlets.
Memos from the building’s director to residents show the landlord offered tenants access to a microwave in one of the building’s lounges and to an electric stove in a vacant unit on the fifth floor, but many found the suggestions impractical.
“Who’s going to be carrying their food and all of their pots and things upstairs every meal to cook?” said Ivelisse Chez, who has lived in the building since 2001. “And everybody’s going to cook on one stove? How will that work?”
Several people, like seven-year building resident Georgia Moran, simply bought their own hot plates.
Despite the purchase, Moran said through a Spanish-language translator that she has had to spend almost twice as much as normal on food for herself and her daughter because cooking took much longer.
“It’s money, wasted money,” she said.
Even for tenants with electric stoves, the gas outage posed a hardship.
Ariano Gomes had just returned from a stay in the hospital the week that the gas was turned off, and he said not having access to the building’s laundry room proved a major inconvenience.
“It’s killing me. I can’t lug my laundry around the corner because I’ve been sick,” Gomes said, adding that the dirty clothing quickly piled up in his studio apartment.
Gomes said that local laundromats were also more expensive than the one in the building, whose washing machines are gas-powered.
However, when he asked to be reimbursed for the extra expenses he would incur, he said he was told no.
“I don’t live here because it’s the Four Seasons," he explained. "I live here because I need to."
Cheryl Miller, a 20-year tenant, said, “Every memo was, 'We’re sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks for your patience.'"
“That’s not good enough.”
Rachel Weinstein, a spokeswoman for Volunteers of America, said the building’s staff worked hard to restore the services as quickly as possible, even reaching out to local politicians to help expedite the process.
However, due to safety concerns and a backlog of work at Con Ed, the process took longer than expected, she explained.
Weinstein noted that building staff updated residents daily on the situation and offered accommodations including extra blankets, wellness checks and access to cooking facilities.
“Because of concerns about safety — like overloading electrical outlets — we did not provide hot plates or space heaters,” she said.
Weinstein said she understood residents’ frustrations, but said that tenants leases do not include rent abatement for disruption of services.
“We feel like we really did our best,” she said. “The program director was relentless in trying to get Con Ed there, but they’re just inundated with emergency calls right now.”
A Con Ed spokeswoman said that part of the delay was due to the fact that inspectors discovered a gas leak at the building when they first responded but found that the repairs made did not pass inspection when they revisited on April 7.
"There was some time here that involved delays," said Con Ed spokeswoman D. Joy Haber. "That’s unfortunate for the tenants, but we have to err on the side of safety."
Haber said that Con Ed has received an increased volume of emergency calls since the East Village explosion in March.
"People are more aware, but we want people to be more aware," Haber said. "We can’t emphasize that enough."
