NYCHA’s toxic dodge

File this one under news that never grows old: The New York City Housing Authority is falling down on basic legal responsibilities to keep thousands of tenants safe. So incapable proved NYCHA at ridding apartments of toxic mold that a federal judge is overseeing its cleanup for going on four years.

Now the city’s Department of Investigation finds that five years ago, the authority cavalierly stopped inspecting apartments for signs of peeling lead paint, in violation of state and federal laws demanding annual checks at 55,000 units at risk to ensure little kids won’t pick up flakes and eat them.

Stopped inspecting — but year after year, kept filling out paperwork to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development certifying that it would comply with the federal inspection law.

NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye says she hadn’t a clue until last year, at which point she says she notified HUD that her agency wasn’t doing the inspections — but still personally proceed- ed to sign the form certifying NYCHA “will comply” with the requirements. Yeah, right.

Nor is NYCHA following the city’s Local Law 1, which similarly demands annual inspections, plus interventions and repairs to contain or remove lead paint hazards.

Lest anyone brush off the dodgeball game as mere bureaucratic buffoonery: kids’ health is on the line. Not for nothing does DOI Commissioner Mark Peters now demand an outside monitor to oversee inspections.

Even while bureaucrats rubber-stamped the false HUD forms, lead jeopardized the development of children living in NYCHA apartments.

Blood tests over a five-year period starting in 2010 revealed more than 200 children living in 133 NYCHA apartments had elevated levels of lead in their bodies — and nearly half of those apartments tested positive for lead paint.

Memo to the chairwoman: Get your house in order. Now.