Yesterday, two adults and one child died when a fire broke out in their apartment in Belmont, and though investigators don't suspect any criminality, the Department of Buildings says the building received numerous complaints for things like illegal conversion, lack of exits and faulty wiring starting in 2009. The fire has prompted Mayor Bloomberg to go after landlords who illegally subdivide apartment buildings. He said, "In the end, the real people culpable are landlords who break up apartments in the interest of profits and put people that live there at risk...We should go after the landlords and rest assured the city is going to do that."
One source told the Post that investigators had been denied access to the building on multiple occasions, but that, "Everyone living in that building was a squatter. The building should have been empty." Bloomberg said the city has a hard time getting warrants to enter buildings that are the subject of such complaints; Christine Quinn says courts deny two-thirds of access warrant requests. She said the city council will be holding hearings on the issue in June.
