Tenants Don't Know They Live In Illegally Subdivided Units

After the Queens fire that killed three and injured four others in an illegally subdivided home, people are speaking out against illegal subdivisions. Queens Civic Congress president Corey Bearak told the NY Times, "It’s not just about taxing sewer lines and overcrowding in schools and parking. Ultimately, what happens with these fires, it manifests itself in people dying, and it’s absolutely outrageous." And some tenants have no idea they are living in dangerous apartments or rooms, with one saying "We didn’t know. Where are we going to go? It makes me angry." Landlords have said they bought the buildings with the subdivisions already in place.

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By Jen Chung in News on November 10, 2009 12:42 PM

Comments [rss]

Theodore Wirth

What a totally lame excuse!

Anybody who has enough resources to be a landlord certainly knows the rules and regulations beforehand. It's all about the money folks and tragically, profits have a higher priority than the lives of OTHER humans and OTHER people's animals. See "health care reform."

silver

Sounds like a typical mexican family.

Trilby16

Hint: If you are living along with 18 other people in tiny rooms with cardboard walls in the basement of what looks like a single-family house, you are in an illegal apartment.

books

everybody knows they are breaking the law - obviously the landlords know what their occupancy is. and obviously these tenants have a clue that they are not legit apartments -

Mostly I blame the city for having a corrupt housing department with 8 inspectors for a city of 8 million people.

longacre

As long as they have heat and running water, the shittiest apartment in New York is still nicer than a lot of places these tenants come from.