Rafael Romano: Soap can temporarily solve a tight fix, but it doesn’t get the landlord out of one.
Yvonne Anderson: “I wanna get out of here, sir.”
“I wanna get out of here, sir. I need to get out of here,” Yvonne Anderson pleaded from the living room of her Quinnipiac Gardens apartment.
Anderson was making her plea to Rafael Ramos, the deputy director of the Livable City Initiative (LCI), a city government housing inspection agency.
Ramos and three other city employees arrived Thursday at Quinnipiac Gardens, the apartment complex where Anderson lives at 1314 Quinnipiac Ave. They showed up the morning after a new tenant union protested living conditions there and demanded that landlord Pike Intentional resolve longstanding maintenance issues.
The team of four city inspectors split up to independently examine each of the 71 apartments. That was the original goal, but many people were not at home to answer doors.
They were able to make it inside 16 of those apartments. They reported finding damage in all 16 and ordered repairs made within 30 days.
They left their contact information on doors where nobody answered and said that they will return to inspect any apartment if the tenant calls them.
“The last complaint filed for this property was in 2019,” Ramos reported as he pulled into the Quinnipiac Gardens parking lot at 10 a.m. “But just because we haven’t had a complaint in a long time doesn’t mean there’s no problem.”
According to Yvonne Anderson and other tenants, there are too many problems to count.
“Basically, I don’t like it here,” Anderson said. “In the winter it’s like a refrigerator. I have to wear a headscarf, socks, and keep four blankets on me at night.”
Anderson said that last year, the same time at which she moved into the apartment, she contracted Covid-19. She said that the low temperatures in the apartment contributed to the deterioration of her health. “I almost died,” she said, recounting how she spent four months in the hospital. Since then, she’s been confined to a wheelchair. She can’t go up the stairs to sleep in her own bed.
The property manager’s policy states that individuals have to pay their rent through an online portal with Pike International or in person at Walmart. She doesn’t have internet access, she said. She also finds it hard to make it to Walmart.
“I wanna get out of here, sir. I need to get out of here. I can’t take it,” she told Ramos.
Anderson, like 40 percent of other tenants in the complex, receives a federal Section 8 rental subsidy.
Ramos informed her that she can elect to move every year through Section 8, but that she would have to give 60 days advance notice.
“Talk to your caseworker,” he suggested.
“I don’t know who my worker is,” Anderson responded.
Ramos provided her with contact information to receive assistance and information concerning her rights as a federal housing voucher recipient. His job, he said, is not just to report concrete issues with the property — like mold, missing smoke detectors, or vermin — but to educate tenants about their rights and to link them to the right resources.
At the end of that emotional conversation, Ramos said that the only report he would make about the unit was that it needs a new screen door. Though Anderson had said the apartment got too cold, Ramos noted that the thermostat could reach up to 65 degrees.
“The issue is that she needs a handicapped-accessible apartment,” he said.
In other apartments, instances of evident and severe damage abounded.
Ana Laureno: Ready to move out.
Over in Ana Laureno’s apartment, faulty caulking, leakage, and a “black, mold like substance” were just a few of the issues that Ramos discovered.
A glass tupperware container sat on the corner of the stove, collecting water that was dripping from a molding corner of the ceiling above.
A leaky shower head.
The rusted bathtub.
Because of problems with the shower head, water is always trickling in the upstairs bathroom, he learned. Because of a poor tiling job in the shower, that same water is always seeping down into the kitchen.
A “black, mold like substance” that Ramos said a scientist will have to officially name.
Laureno said that she has lost heat on multiple occasions during the past year. In place of a thermostat are two open wires that she said the property’s maintenance worker told her should effectively heat the house.
On top of that, Laureno pointed to a hole in the wall from which she said rats enter her home.
And, on top of that, the back door gets jammed. Laureno demonstrated the extent of the issue by pulling against the door with all her weight.
Ramos interrupted her: “You’ll pull your back out,” he cautioned.
Most back doors that Ramos tried to open had the same problem. He noted that it’s typical of this time of year, as the weather causes the width of the wood to swell. “It’s a common problem, but they should work on that.”
Soap Is Handy
Nora Grace-Flood photo
News 8 interviews Rafael Ramos at Q Gardens
The solution, he said, would be refitting the door or investing in lubricants. In the meantime, he got a bar of soap and slathered it on the inside of the frame. It temporarily aided the issue, but, he said, it doesn’t take blame off the landlord.
Like Anderson, Laureno said she has intentions to move out of the apartment.
The complex’s property manager said that he was surprised to hear about the extent of the residents’ concerns. He told the Independent that he does annual inspections himself.
Just a few weeks ago, back in July, he said he went into every apartment unit and asked if anyone needed anything. The number of complaints he received, he said, did not match the severity of the complaints listed by tenants in the media.
“It’s by no means perfect, but it’s livable,” he said of the apartment complex. He maintained that a lot of the damage was caused by tenants themselves.
Nick Caprio, one of the city inspectors, said that there were “a billion things” going on behind the scenes that could explain miscommunications concerning the state of the apartments. Many of the tenants he talked to, he reported, disclosed that they were behind on rent and frightened to report issues to the landlord.
Across the units, Ramos said, “deferred maintenance, makeshift repairs, vermin infestation, and stuck doors” made up the bulk of the site’s concerns. He said he will file a report by Friday listing every problem that the landlord will be responsible for fixing. Those solutions must take place within the course of 21 days after the report is received.
The only immediate safety violation requiring 24-hour repair — rather than 30-day fixes — was a missing smoke detector from one floor of a family’s apartment, he said. Outside of the buildings themselves, inspectors filed reports detailing overgrown vegetation and clogged gutters.
In 30 days, Ramos said, his team will return to the apartments to check whether the appropriate repairs have been completed. If not, they may request a summons to take the landlord to court.
So hold on: Ms. Anderson blames her landlord for her COVID and inability to get upstairs? Did she miss the stairs when she rented the apartment? IS it Pike's fault that she has no internet and can't get to Walmart to pay rent? Ever hear of calling and working something out with the landlord??
The landlord is also to blame for summer humidity that swells wood? MY DOORS swell in the summer--- should I report myself to LCI. The smoke detector walked away from the ceiling? THe last report to LCI was 2019?? This is a joke. LCI called the bluff of the tenants and found a few legitimate issues but not the end of the world situation the tenants howled over downtown. Tenants have been shown to be disingenuous and the gullible public is so anxious to blame the landlord. Thankfully, the NHI and LCI followed this through to the truth.
How many tenants are not paying the rent to PIKE?