Olga Camil shows us her apartment where she has lived since 1995…
“Years that don’t fix, and everything is falling down here.”
The gloomy walls of Camil’s apartment, at 709 West 175th Street in Washington Heights, have witnessed a struggle sustained for many years.
“I don’t have electricity here… this is more than four years old (a wall in poor condition). They don’t fix anything, the broken floor, all that black stuff, they cleaned it, but it’s still not there, look up here, all that,” Camil added.
From the lack of heating and hot water, to the presence of pests such as rats and cockroaches.
“The bad smell, the mice, rats, there are no mice here, there are rats here, now they don’t let me sleep between the walls there, here, they don’t let me sleep the whole night, catching the whole night moving,” said Keny Rodríguez.
Through collapsing roofs and constant harassment from their landlord, the tenants of buildings 705 and 709 on 170th Street have been organizing for more than two years to obtain basic repairs and decent housing and are asking the city to allow units become cooperatives.
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“What we want is for HPD to give us the building so we can form a cooperative, and be the owners of this building and thus be able to use the rent money that we have accumulated now because we were in Rent Strike, along with loans that we ask the city to be able to fix these buildings,” said Loyda Irizarry.
The buildings are owned by Daniel Ohebshalom, listed as one of New York’s worst landlords, who owns more than 15 buildings in the city, each averaging nearly 3,000 violations. In these two buildings alone there are more than 600 violations and dozens of empty apartments completely destroyed.
“For years he has given nothing but negligence. “If we see the conditions where these tenants have been forced to live, they are conditions where there are holes in their walls, there are mojo, cockroaches, mice, everything that you can imagine that is not compatible with human dignity exists here in these buildings,” he said. Councilor Carmen De La Rosa.
City Housing Department officials are scheduled to conduct an inspection visit in the coming weeks, so tenants are hoping for quick action.
“We are not asking for luxuries, but to live in a place that is healthy and out of danger for us and that is not toxic,” Irizarry added.
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