After Six Weeks Of No Cooking Gas, Neighbors At 146 E. 19th Street Push For Change

Neighbors at 146 E. 19th Street have, once again, reached out to us because the entire building hasn’t had cooking gas for about six weeks – and they said it looks like the landlord company hasn’t even started work to address the problem yet.

When we reached Adam Reisman at the landlord company, Newcastle Realty, this morning, he said they had “no comment” about the situation and hung up.

From an email one of the tenants sent to us yesterday:

It has been about 6 weeks now, and we are still without cooking gas. Not only that, but a notice was posted in our lobby this week that makes it sound like work has yet to even begin and will be starting soon.

We still don’t have a date when we will have cooking gas back. Our super told us it will be at least another month. This is totally unacceptable.

Saying they want to know why there has been such a delay in fixing the gas, another neighbor said “everyone in our building should be getting a rent abatement or reduction for this inconvenience.”

When we spoke to Aga Trojniak, of the Flatbush Tenant Coalition, about the residents at 146 East 19th Street the last time we wrote about it, she recommended that tenants file for a rent reduction for decreased services by going here.

“It will offset some of the costs of having to buy prepared food for that long, and it will give the landlord an incentive to speed up the work,” Aga wrote to us.

“I’m a big proponent of what I call the ‘Upper East Side’ or ‘Park Ave’ test when trying to figure out what’s reasonable for a landlord to do or for a tenant to expect: what kind of treatment would a well-off resident on the UES expect and get?” Aga continued. “That’s the treatment everyone deserves.  I doubt very much that well-off UES folks would be told they have to wait six weeks for their gas to be fixed.”We’ve also reached out to Councilman Mathieu Eugene about the matter.