Apartment Too Cold? Your Landlord May Be Cheating You

Another option if your apartment is too cold

It's cold out there, if you hadn't noticed. And when it's cold, we'll forgive our radiator for the 6 a.m. wake-up call because we're just thankful the heat is on. But for many people across the city that's not the case, and City Council wants to do something about it. In new legislation debated by the Council yesterday, landlords would be fined up to $500 per day they don't provide adequate heat and hot water, and up to $1000 for subsequent violations.

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, one of the bill's sponsors, told CBS2, “It happens because the laws aren’t strong enough and some bad landlords are taking advantage of weak laws and we’re going to stop it." 311 has reportedly had over 150,000 heat and hot water complaints since October. One Bushwick woman complained that the landlord of her rent-controlled building shuts off the heat at 6:00 p.m. every night. “After 6:00, boom, it shuts down. Boilers not working, boilers on automatic shut off, it will turn on eventually, it never does and look, we didn’t have no heat last night and still there’s no heat," she said.

According to the City Housing Maintenance Code, landlords are required to provide heat during "Heat Season" between October 1st and May 31st. If the temperature outside is below 55 degrees between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. the inside temperature must be heated to at least 68 degrees, and if the temperature outside is below 40 degrees from 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. the inside temperature must be heated to at least 55 degrees. You could just embrace the trend and freeze in your own apartment. Or is that too 2010?

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jaya Saxena in News on February 9, 2011 11:35 AM

Comments [rss]

HAD1

In Maine we have the same problem, but with landlords that don't fix up their apartments in preparation for the winter months. I lived in an apartment that would have been warmer if the landlord had fixed the drafty areas and adjusted the heat properly. We had plenty of heat during the week when the office was open, but come the weekend, we always had heating problems. I know that it was because the office was in the same building. I am glad to get out of that building. I am now in a Portland Housing building and I am warmer than I have ever been.
I wish that landlords would take better care of their buildings and then maybe their buildings would be more full of tenants.

Dubai Directory

The Attorney General's Office is prohibited from acting as a private attorney on individual residential landlord-tenant complaints following a 1985 court decision of the Washington Supreme Court. Because we do not have the jurisdiction to enforce the Residential Landlord-Tenant Act, we do not accept complaints or distribute information relevant to landlord/tenant issues.

Ingo

My controlled rent is $400 and my landlord is CHEATING me by trying to not go broke! Yawn. Unless this lady has her windows open, it can't possibly be below the legal temp if the heat is just off for the night. And if her building sucks that much, why the fuck does she live there? Stupid.

HAD1

Why do you have to complain with such vulgar language? I bet you are smart enough to know what you are doing and saying so please say it with some decent words.

Rod

you sound like an idiot.

i wonder why that might be.

jaycjay

"Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, one of the bill's sponsors,"

No, he's not one of the bill's sponsors. I could look up who the sponsors are, but I don't have to do that in order to know that he can't be one of them.

He's the Public Advocate, not a member of the City Council, so he can't introduce or sponsor any bills in the Council.

bwmaister

The first link in the article you're commenting on is to the bill's official page on legistar.council.nyc.gov, which lists all the sponsors. There are quite a few, but Mr. de Blasio is the first.

random transplant

Why are buildings with 45+ 311 violations (not just calls) even allowed to publicly advertise themselves as rental units? We're talking nice looking, nice neighborhood, backdrop of recent national television/movie, historic slums.

$5,000 violations don't help. Boilers cost far more & you can always get the tenants who organized the building off the lease by illegally refusing to re-rent the unit.

Glad I supported Bill de Blasio on other issues. What took him so long?

Rod

quick answer:

for 17 years NYC has been run by Republican mayors (who cheated every single 'election' btw) and their loyalty is 100% to landlords.

(well, not so much small landlords!)

Telemachus_1

Ridiculous.

BillyBob26

"Boilers not working, boilers on automatic shut off, it will turn on eventually, it never does and look, we didn’t have no heat last night and still there’s no heat,"

"didnt have no heat" .. so she had heat and shes complaining?? will never understand people and double/triple negatives.

Communist

$500?... I also like when you report no-heat to 311 and inspector comes 10 hours later and demand you pay them for a false report... told them to fuck out of my face.

taracorinne

there are temperature standards set by the law. just because you're cold doesn't mean the apartment isn't set to the city mandated minimum. 55 degrees ain't that warm but that's the minimum at night.

JeanneNYC

True. 55 degrees is an extremely cold inside temp.

kevd

you told them to fuck out of your face?
frightening image, an inspector fucking out of your face.
probably worse for you than for them, too.

Communist

Either you are an immigrant or just terribly un-funny. I suspect it's all of the above.

kevd

Weird. Because between the two of us, I'm the one who can construct a sentence in English and correctly use complex idiomatic expressions like "get the fuck out of my face."

Good use of articles too their buddy - "and inspector comes." You reallllly seem like a native English speaker there, aleksey. No really, you do.

In Russia, Face fucks out of You!

Joey

At my previous residence, in Inwood, our building went on rent-strike just to get the heat turned on. This is, hopefully, a pleasant turn of events for those in cold situations!

taracorinne

In order for you not to be evicted, you need to do that properly by still paying your rent but paying it to an escrow. Otherwise, despite the fact that the landlord isn't heating the building, you still can be evicted because you were not keeping up your side of the bargain (paying the legal rent).

Rod

technically, you are right, but I personally know that few housing court judges enforce it, since I've used this rent strike tactic several times.

Cyndi Lauper even got her rent lowered by fighting back. some of my friends did too.