It's cold out there, if you hadn't noticed. And when it's cold, we'll forgive our radiator for the 6 a.m. wake-up call because we're just thankful the heat is on. But for many people across the city that's not the case, and City Council wants to do something about it. In new legislation debated by the Council yesterday, landlords would be fined up to $500 per day they don't provide adequate heat and hot water, and up to $1000 for subsequent violations.
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, one of the bill's sponsors, told CBS2, “It happens because the laws aren’t strong enough and some bad landlords are taking advantage of weak laws and we’re going to stop it." 311 has reportedly had over 150,000 heat and hot water complaints since October. One Bushwick woman complained that the landlord of her rent-controlled building shuts off the heat at 6:00 p.m. every night. “After 6:00, boom, it shuts down. Boilers not working, boilers on automatic shut off, it will turn on eventually, it never does and look, we didn’t have no heat last night and still there’s no heat," she said.
According to the City Housing Maintenance Code, landlords are required to provide heat during "Heat Season" between October 1st and May 31st. If the temperature outside is below 55 degrees between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. the inside temperature must be heated to at least 68 degrees, and if the temperature outside is below 40 degrees from 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. the inside temperature must be heated to at least 55 degrees. You could just embrace the trend and freeze in your own apartment. Or is that too 2010?
