From the Daily News:
When five people died in two deadly blazes early this year, the Daily News revealed a deadly pattern: city building inspectors investigating complaints of illegal units routinely closed cases after two unsuccessful door knocks.
Mayor Bloomberg ordered an overhaul of the way the city enforces the law, including having uniformed firefighters accompany inspectors when they door-knock suspected firetraps.
In the years leading up to the change, Department of Building inspectors had increasing difficulty gaining access to suspect buildings. Last year the rate reached an all time low of 45%.
Since firefighter started acting as escorts, the rate of success has turned around, with inspectors getting inside 54% of the time - a nine point jump.
That represented a reversal of years of declining rates even as thousands of complaints about illegal apartments continued to roll in every month.
Inspectors also issued violations more often when they got inside - 37% of the time compared to 32% the previous year.
And the city went to court far more often to force landlords to let them in, obtaining special warrants 115 times fiscal 2011. That compares to 67 times the prior year.
16 comments:
The city is more successful finding 50 year old illegal bathrooms in basements to fine unknowing homeowners and raise revenue for the city to waste.
Why can't the FDNY be asked to be on all inspections with regards to fire safety. Here in North Flushing we have many homes with illegal conversations of basements and attics that have real safety issues to the occupants and the nearby neighbors. DOB needs to do their job and protect the public from greedy landlords and developers.
How about enforcement with teeth - get Fire Marshal on the case after the 2 attempt to enter a premise without success.
Illegal apartments and basement apartments often get rented out to people involved with illegal activities (immigrants w/o paperwork, cons on the run, people dodging summonses/child support/sexual predators).
Undocumented units are where people go to stay off the radar.
Getting rid of them will also help to solve other issues.
The fdny keeping inspectors honest?
When are they coming to Maspeth? Illegal conversions have really been on the rise here, with about a 50% increase here.
"people dodging summonses"
Yea people are living in 400$ rooms to dodge a 25$ drinking ticket.
The landlords are also not declaring the illegal income on their taxes. Send State and Federal Tax enforcement with the inspector and FDNY and it's a win / win as far as collecting extra income.
And then send the greedy prick landlords to jail.
People are living in illegal rooms and apts because under Bloomberg, who considers a $500k condo a housing program for the poor, those illegal firetraps are the only low cost housing available. Don't blame it on the tenants, or even on the demand for such housing. Blame it on the crooked landlords.
"Undocumented units are where people go to stay off the radar."
Is there some kind of master list of legal apartment renters that people who rent basements magically stay off of? Someone renting a basement apartment is no more on or off the radar than the person renting the legal upstairs apartments.
They most certainly are off the radar. Why do you think our census count went down while our neighborhoods are more overcrowded? Why do you think there is residential trash in public trashcans? Why can't the city provide adequate services? Because they have no idea how many people live in this city due to illegal conversions. The landlords won't admit they have illegal renters and the renters don't want to ruin their good thing either and lay low.
The illegal apartment does not make them off the radar any more than anyone in a legal apartment is off the radar. When I say off the radar I am using the term in the context of the anon who claims "(immigrants w/o paperwork, cons on the run, people dodging summonses/child support/sexual predators)" use illegal apartments to stay "off the radar". There is really no difference between a legal and illegal apartment for someone trying to stay off the grid. Being counted by the census does not make one "on the radar". Legally the census can't use that information for anything but the census count.
There are plenty of people who live in legal apartments who dump their trash in corner garbage cans in neighborhoods like East NY. Besides, it's not like DSNY is rifling through people garbage looking for evidence of multiple apartments, and it's not like the neighbors don't know there are people living there. The garbage really doesn't give much info that isn't already obvious.
Not true. If utilities are included and rent is paid in cash, then what record is there that a person or persons live there?
If you want to escape the background check, you are going to aim for the illegal unit. Just sayin'...
"people dodging summonses"
Yea people are living in 400$ rooms to dodge a 25$ drinking ticket.
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A summons is to appear in court for any number of reasons, idiot.
Hiding from collections agencies and process servers.
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