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Last month I moved into a Basement apartment in Brooklyn. There is only one window and it is connected to a shaft that enters onto the floor of a small adjacent building. The other building is not 'finished' yet. There are large containers of enamel, joint compound and other building materials within. The fumes are going right down the shaft and into my apartment. When I first moved in I thought the smell was the paint and caulking used to fix up my apartment after the other people moved out. But when I got my internet connection put in I saw where my window actually went to.
I have told the management company about this last week and they said it would be taken care of 'right away' but it has not. A second email to them has so far been unanswered.
Other than this problem I like this apartment. I had a hard time finding a decent place in my price range. I'd like to stay but I don't want to DIE.
I have been getting light headaches and feeling weak for the past couple of weeks. I can't be 100% sure it is caused by the fumes.
What if they do nothing?
Should I contact the Dept Of Buildings?
Or a lawyer?
These things would obviously ruin my chances of getting my lease renewed next year, right?
There is only one window and it is connected to a shaft that enters onto the
floor of a small adjacent building.
I don't quite understand...do you want to amplify?
DO you think this is a legal apartment? A single window certainly cannot legally be only to a shaft from which you cannot escape. And it certainly cannot have egress only into an adjacent building.
Call 311 if there are flammable items being stored outside your "window."
I don't know if it is legal or not. Yes it is a single window going to a shaft that I cannot escape.
Still no response from the management company. If nothing happens by the end of the week I call 311.
if the apartment is filled with toxic fumes, it's an emergency. Call the management company and tell them to send someone right now or you're going to call 911 and a hazmat team will condemn the apartment and slap them with fines
I called 311, they sent the complaint to DEP who apparently "investigated" it on the very same day (I was told they would contact me within 5 days but they did not). They didn't come to my apartment. If they looked at the outside of the building they couldn't see anything, unless they somehow found the super's number, called him and had him come and unlock the building next door...
The DEP apparently sent the complaint to the "Bureau of Environmental Compliance" for further action. The service request is now "closed".
The Gowanus Canal is the most toxic waterway in America.
MOVE NOW !!!
do not file reports, or call 311. move, move, move. do not live in a basement, ever !
To me, this sounds like an ILLEGAL basement that was turned into an apartment.
you need 2 types of egress, you don't, it is illegal, I'm almost certain of it. One window opening to a shaftway, cannot be legal.
do not live in a basement, it isn't healthy.
basements were not meant to be habitable.
read up on "Love Canal", eye opening read.
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