Thursday, May 6, 2010

Bushwick hell house still a problem

From NY1:

Over a year ago, the homeowner came to NY1 For You to complain of an illegal boarding house next door. At the time, there was a serious fire violation in the house, since there were 30 men living there with no sprinkler system.

NY1 called the Fire Department and they inspected the house and ordered the building to be vacated. In response, Miracle House Incorporated, the company which runs the boarding house, installed a sprinkler system. Now, Tarrats says everything else went back to the way it was.

"The police have come on several occasions in answer to some disturbances of people that had to be removed by force," says Tarrats.

He believes the boarding house is a rotating door for recovering drug addicts and homeless people, but cannot say for sure since he has never spoken to anyone in charge.

"We don’t know for certainty what’s going on in there. We just know that we have strangers come in and a few weeks later they’re out," says Tarrats.

NY1 called the administrator for Miracle House Incorporated and he declined to comment.

The station then called The Department of Buildings and a spokeswoman told NY1 the agency sent inspectors to the home and found the three-story, two-family home was being used illegally as a boarding house with 30 beds.

DOB inspectors issued a violation to the owner for exceeding the occupancy allowed by the Certificate of Occupancy. The owner needs to pay a $12,000 fine and file an application to amend the Certificate of Occupancy to reflect the new use and meet all the necessary requirements for that use.

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