More NYCHA Horrors — and Lies

Just in case you thought all the lies of the New York City Housing Authority had been revealed, a new City & State investigation last week exposed a coverup of pollution in projects’ water tanks.

The news site examined internal NYCHA inspection reports from 2015 to 2017, which indicate nauseating contamination in more than 600 tanks: “flying insects,” “deceased squirrels,” “dead birds.” In the worst cases, tank cleaners found homeless people using the large wooden barrels as shelters . . . and toilets.

But NYCHA filings with the city Health Department hid these details, even leaving them out entirely. Thus the official report for a Brooklyn building makes no mention that inspectors found “birds in drain” — even though the forms specifically order the listing of any contamination by birds, rodents or insects.

It’s likely that many more major violations have gone unreported, since tank-cleaning companies often don’t mention them to NYCHA, for fear of losing their contracts. “We don’t write it, because nobody likes that,” an inspector who requested anonymity told City & State.

Meanwhile, public-housing residents continue to get sick from coffee-colored water and the bug-infested silt that pours out through their faucets. That’s on top of the poison threats from NYCHA’s rampant mold and lead-paint horrors, among all the other woes on the agency’s $32 billion list of needed repairs.

Hey, you don’t get to be New York’s largest slumlord without record neglect in a whole host of categories.