New York’s Staten Island — This winter, a 75-year-old single man from Staten Island’s Park Hill Apartments went without heat for a month. The building’s owners claim they took all reasonable steps to address the problem as soon as possible, but his family is extremely frustrated and worried that it may be exacerbating his emphysema and asthma.
The resident, who wishes to remain nameless, expressed fear that she would either freeze to death or have an asthma attack.
His daughter, Diane Rodriguez, reassured him that it is crucial to talk about it, but he noted that he is afraid of being evicted for doing so.
According to Rodriguez, this has been happening since the middle of December. After my husband went and sat down with the building manager, he was assured that everything would be resolved. Nothing took place.
In an attempt to settle the dispute, Rodriguez and her husband, Raphael Lajara, texted the building management of 280 Park Hill Ave. multiple times, but they were finally let down, they claimed.
Lajara and the landlord exchanged text messages, which were examined by the Advance/SILive.com. On behalf of his father-in-law, Lajara contacted the building management on Thursday, December 26, 2024, to let them know he was in the building and to ask for a face-to-face meeting.
Lajara texted again the day following their meeting, politely stating that the heat was still out and that something [had] to be done today because he was sick.
That day, the building manager replied, “Hello, we’re working on it.”
Rodriguez and Lajara made the decision to phone 311 and submit a report on January 6, 2025, as noted in the Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) database, after almost two weeks had passed with no resolution. As a result, Rodriguez claims that inspectors came to look at the property and were astounded by how cold it was.
Rodriguez stated last week, “We got my father a small heater because he sleeps in that cold apartment, but I’m afraid he might forget it and it’s going to go on fire because he’s 75 years old.” And everyone on the side of the building where my father resides is without heat, not just him.
Over the weekend, the family reported that the heat had finally returned.
On Monday, there was still an open HPD violation for the apartment’s lack of heat and an open complaint for a more widespread heat outage throughout the building; but, by the middle of the week, both had been closed.
According to HPD, 47 complaints about a lack of heat have been made by tenants in the apartment complex through 311 since November 13, 2024. These complaints have all been marked as closed cases.
The HPD investigates complaints, gets in touch with the building’s management, and may issue citations if problems aren’t resolved within a predetermined number of days after a city resident phones 311. If the issue is fixed, they will contact you again and close the complaint.
The building management at 280 Park Hill Ave. first refused to comment when approached by Advance/SILive.com.
DelShah Capital, the business that owns the Park Hill Apartments, claimed on Wednesday that it took weeks to determine the cause of the malfunctioning heat.
According to spokesperson Juda S. Engelmayer, a superintendent was sent out right away to investigate and resolve the matter after receiving the complaint. At first, it was thought to be fixed, but we subsequently discovered that a malfunctioning valve was the source of the issue. This has now been resolved for good.
A history of complaints
Tenants of the government-subsidized Park Hill Apartments have reportedly experienced subpar living conditions for years, including vermin and rat infestations, dangerous mildew, malfunctioning elevators, malfunctioning utilities, and more, according to previous reporting by Advance/SILive.com.
The address where Rodriguez’s father lives, 280 Park Hill Ave., has received 619 complaints in the last two years. The HPD webpage indicates that there are 384 open violations overall. (Priya Shahi/Staten Island Advance)Shahi Priya
Additionally, the building where Rodriguez’s father resides, located at 280 Park Hill Ave., had the most open violations on Staten Island as of January 2022. Tenants at Park Hill Apartments became so irate in 2019 that dozens of them organized to address management and local authorities, stating that their main complaints were vermin infestations, lengthy repair delays, and overflowing trash.
“We are working very closely with them to help get the refinancing that they need to turn these places around,” stated Debi Rose, a former member of the City Council, in 2021, after she had worked more than ten years addressing the problems with the building owners. As a result, the process is quite complex.
Heat restored after many weeks: This is a bandaid fix
Lajara claimed that he had a face-to-face conversation with a building supervisor last week regarding his father-in-law’s predicament, in which he had been without heat for weeks, and he pushed them to replace the boiler if that was the root of the issue. However, he was informed that a new boiler would cost millions of dollars.
On Friday, Jan. 24, two reporters from the Advance/SILive.com went to the building to talk to Rodriguez’s father. While in the elevator during the visit, two additional tenants revealed that they, too, had been without heat in their apartments for weeks.
Maintenance workers were observed knocking on second-floor tenants’ doors after 2:00 p.m. to inquire if their heat had been restored.
According to a maintenance guy, we rectified it today. We fixed the boiler’s valves.
After more than three weeks, the heat was eventually restored last Friday afternoon in Rodriguez’s father’s apartment and other apartments on his side of the building.
According to Rodriguez’s father, the issue with the heat and hot water has occurred previously, but not for this long.
Rodriguez and her husband feel more has to be done even though the heat has been turned back on.
According to Lajara, they replaced a boiler valve but did not receive a new boiler. They keep doing this till it breaks again. This is a temporary solution.
The HDP reports that during the winter months of 2024, 311 complaints about the building’s lack of heat were made, with five occurring in January, 25 in February, and nine in March.
Lajara worries that the boiler problem isn’t resolved because the heating problem has occurred previously. He believes the valve was changed to temporarily give heat, but if the boiler isn’t fixed or replaced properly, this could lead to other problems.
In 2010, Engelmayer noted, each complex’s heat plant had its backup system redesigned and one boiler upgraded as part of the heating infrastructure.
The owners of three Park Hill Apartments buildings are now working with government organizations on a comprehensive repair plan, he noted.
An overhaul of the heating system is part of the modifications, and we expect the project to close by the end of the year, he said.
Although we are being proactive, these systems are intended to continue operating dependably for another ten years.
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