Harlem tenants left without heat and hot water for weeks

Residents of a six-story Harlem apartment building owned by a notorious slumlord have been suffering without heat and hot water for weeks amid the coronavirus pandemic, The Post has learned.

Tenants at 2035 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. have been without heat or hot water since Oct. 27 due to a busted boiler, forcing them to resort to boiling water to bathe themselves and layer up with clothes.

Department of Buildings inspectors ordered fixes after a November 10 visit where they discovered there was no water at all in the boiler — which had at least one corroded pipe — and the controls and gauges were covered in soot, city records show.

“It’s just unbearable to be dealing with these conditions. There is only so much water that you are able to boil at a time,” resident Mariel Javier, 33, told The Post Friday. “These are basic necessities, you would think we would be living in a third-world country with how the conditions of this building are.”

Javier has been forced to send his 10-year-old twin daughters to stay with their grandparents in Westchester County every few days.

Their landlord, Emmanuel Ku, had been notified years ago that the boiler was trouble, but he’s failed to fix it, said Javier — who works in the tenant resources division of the city’s Housing and Preservation Department and has worked as the troubled building’s manager.

He told The Post he begged Ku’s staff in 2018 and 2019 to replace the boiler but said he was told that he needed to “get us through this winter. We’re not buying a new boiler.”

Buildings Department records confirm the boiler has been a problem. City inspectors reported that it suffered from low pressure in 2019 and that Ku failed to file a required 2017 inspection report on the unit.

On Oct. 30, a frustrated Javier sued Ku in Housing Court, seeking a judge’s order to finally get the boiler fixed.

“I took it upon myself to initiate a court proceeding where I would bring the landlord to court and hold him liable for the heat and hot water and most importantly the hazardous stairway that we have right here,” Javier said.

It’s just the latest instance of alleged neglect at a building owned by Ku — and not just in the Big Apple, according to records from Records from Connecticut.

In 2018, The US Department of Housing and Urban development terminated Ku’s $1-million-a-year contract to provide subsidized housing to residents in two dozen Hartford apartment buildings that posed “major threats to health and safety,” according to a report in The Hartford Courant.

Connecticut’s attorney general, William Tong, announced in January he was launching a probe of Ku for allegedly cashing in on government subsidies and tax benefits but failing to keep the buildings safe and sanitary.

His track record in New York City is also littered with years of complaints and violations, records show.

The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development watchdog agency, has cited 10 buildings owned by Ku in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and The Bronx with a combined 1,989 violations over the years — 466 of which remain unfixed, according to city records compiled by the tenant advocates group JustFix.NYC.

Ku’s building on Amsterdam Avenue accounts for 374 of those open violations.

One tenant, a 29-year-old woman who has lived there for three years, said she has not been able to take a proper shower in weeks.

“It’s pretty crazy. I’ve been going to family’s places,” said the woman, who declined to give her name. “I’ve been boiling water, taking the most extreme bird baths I’ve ever done. I’m just trying to get creative, making do with something.”

The conditions may force her to move out, she said.

“There are people who have children, and I feel super bad for them,” she said. “If I had kids right now, especially during COVID, online learning, no shower, no heat, it’s got to be tough.”

“It’s been hard,” said another tenant, 21-year-old Moustapha Ndiaye. “I can’t take a shower. I boil the water, like two pots. It’s nice to just wake up and take a shower.”

A Buildings Department spokesman told The Post that the agency has provided Ku’s company with guidance on obtaining a mobile boiler and added that they “will continue to monitor the situation, and may take additional enforcement actions if repairs are not made.”

Meanwhile, an HPD spokesman said “further action will be taken” will be taken against Ku, pointing out that “fines have been issued and we are actively working to correct the most serious violations as quickly as possible.”

According to tenants, management officials at the Harlem building messaged them Saturday to report they “still do not have approval from NYC to install the emergency boiler,” and said company lawyers would follow up with the city on Monday.

The message also said tenants would be provided with space heaters, but it was unclear Sunday if management followed through.