Boarding house ‘fully operational’ once again
KINGSTON, N.Y. » A boarding house on Elizabeth Street that was shut down by the city’s Building Safety Division two years ago due to an infestation of bedbugs has completely reponed, a city attorney said Monday.
Assistant Corporation Counsel Daniel Gartenstein said the house at 21 Elizabeth St. is now “fully operational.”
“All of the issues that [lead to its closure] have been resolved,” Gartenstein said.
The boarding house was shut down in September 2015, displacing several dozen male residents. The first floor reopened in early 2016 while work continued on the second and third floors.
The Elizabeth Street house stands on a short block between Washington Avenue and Wall Street, near George Washington Elementary School.
At the time of the shutdown, thenCorporation Counsel Andrew Zweben said the bedbug problem had been ongoing for more than five years.
Zweben said the owner, Thomas Phillips, had been told to treat the problem but was unable to do so successfully and admitted it was getting worse.
Zweben, at the time, also said Phillips made tenants sign waivers acknowledging the building was infested before renting rooms to them, which the attorney said was a violation of the state’s Property Maintenance Code.
The code states landlords cannot rent space knowing it has a pest infestation.
At the time of the shutdown, residents said about 30 men were living in the house, though Zweben said he was told there were 52 social services clients living there. One man reported paying $500 per month to share a room with another man.
Phillips still owns the house, according to Thomas Tiano, head of the Building Safety Division. But there was no immediate word Monday about how many people currently live there.
Shortly after the shutdown, the body of a 33-year-old Saugerties man was found in a bathroom in the boarding house. Police said there “was no outward appearance of a criminal act” in the death of the man, identified as David C. Lind.