Sunday, September 12, 2010

Hole in the ceiling a big headache

From NY1:

One morning, Queens resident Manuel Peguero entered his bathroom to find that a huge gaping hole was right over his head.

"One morning it just all came down," says Lucy Peguero, the renter's granddaughter. "And luckily he wasn’t there, because he really would have gotten injured."

Lucy Peguero says the large piece of ceiling directly over her grandfather's toilet collapsed in June, and for the past three months she and her grandfather have been calling the New York City Housing Authority to try and get it fixed.

"They had two people come out here, followed by several phone calls, and nothing's ever been resolved," says Lucy Peguero.

To make matters worse, the hole leaks.

"Every time the people upstairs flush their toilet, it comes down in a little bit of a stream and there’s a puddle of water that collects over the toilet and onto the floor," says the granddaughter.

The steady stream has contributed to mold in the ceiling.

"I’m starting to notice that the edges of the hole are just getting more yellow and they’re getting worse, which signals to me that more is coming down," says Lucy Peguero. "So it’s only a matter time before the dripping water just affects the ceiling and everything falls down on his head."

"Very dangerous, because this is coming down. And how it’s affecting myself, I don’t know -- contamination," says Manuel Peguero.

He says on top of the obvious safety issue, there is a terrible smell coming from the hole.

Out of frustration, Manuel Peguero called NY1 For You and the station reached out to NYCHA. The agency sent inspectors to the man's apartment immediately and fixed the leak.

Now NYCHA is in the process of patching up the hole in Peguero's ceiling. It is a relief to the renter, who is just happy to be done with this whole mess.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

WHEW.....Moby Stavisky must have cut a wicked fart and blew the floor above out!

Anonymous said...

Fix it yourself. $20 worth of materials and two hours of time. Done.

This is why its better to own your own home.

Lucy Peguero said...

A few things:
1-It is not my aging grandfather's responsibility to fix a gigantic hole in the ceiling. The city needed to send professionals in to avoid another collapse.
2-$20 worth of material? What world do you live in where $20 would cover the costs it takes to do this job completely?
3-you say it's better to own your own home like it's so easy to just qualify for a mortgage and then successfully keep making payments on it for 30 + years...
my grandfather worked his ass off for 40 years after coming to this country, paid taxes and raised productive, educated children and grand children. The least you can do is quite being so ridiculously condescending when a loving grand-daughter does whatever is necessary to look out for her grandfather...