Tenants of a Bronx building have been living a nightmare as they try to get ready for Thanksgiving, having gone two weeks with no hot water or working toilets.
"It’s like when you call, they tell you something different all the time. 'They’re working on it' -- who is working on it? I don’t need to be living like this," Shirley Brown said tearfully.
It's understandable she'd get emotional. Water leaked all over her carpets inside her Concourse Village apartment on Sheridan Avenue after the building’s management sent someone Tuesday to fix her toilet, which hasn’t worked for two weeks.
"Everything just explode. And all the water went there and there," Brown said.
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No hot water from the tap for days, and now it's full of debris. Brown is caring for her brother, who has autism.
"I had to strain it to wash him up with," she said.
Brown's problem is not isolated to just her. Tenants in the building said a new property management firm, Gazivoda, now runs the privately owned building.
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There is a long and growing list of complaining residents who have responded, in writing, to a handwritten notice from the building super that says the management is working with the city's Department of Environmental Protection to address the water issues.
But many in the building have young children.
"Even if you open the shower head, it won't open because there's no pressure to come down. I use [a jug] to boil water for them to brush their teeth. I gotta get buckets of water to flush [the toilet], because this don't work," said fellow tenant Tatiana Martinez.
Another tenant, Jose Aquino, said he has called multiple times about the two-week problem, but he's "gotten the run-around, telling me it's the city's fault." Kilvin Alvarez said he would never give his 1-year-old son a bath in the water that comes out of the tub in his apartment, and no water at all comes out of the bathroom sink.
Several of the tenants reached out to the co-founders of Black Opportunities, Chivona and Hawk Newsome, but they also ran into roadblocks.
"You wouldn't see this type of treatment on the Upper East Side, on the Upper West Side," said Hawk Newsome, who called the situation "heart-wrenching." Chivona Newsome said that "no American should have to live under these conditions."
The I-Team called the management company, telling them that there is no water coming from faucets, and those that did have water come out, were littered with black debris. No one from the company called back.
At the office listed for Gazivoda Management, a person would not answer questions regarding the issue, telling NBC New York to stop recording and that "there is nothing more to the conversation."
A spokesman for DEP said they have sent an inspector to the building, but that preliminarily, it appears to be a management issue.
