They’re still waiting for action in the Bronx

SIXTO MARTINEZ, who lives at the Melrose Houses with his wife and two kids, routinely sees paint chips in his bathroom in the South Bronx. And he sees flaking paint in his 13-year-old son’s bedroom.

What he hasn’t seen lately are NYCHA workers who are supposed to conduct annual inspections for lead paint, leaving his children exposed to a potential health hazard lurking in the walls.

“They don’t do annual inspections,” said Martinez, 51, who’s lived in a two-bedroom apartment at Melrose for the last decade.

On Friday, he pointed to a fine layer of paint dust and chips collecting along the walls and floor of his bathroom and the flaking, peeling paint in his son’s room. The son has lived there since he was 3, the daughter her entire life. She’s 9.

Martinez says he’s asked for a transfer for two years and repeatedly requested that NYCHA address the flaking paint. He’s still waiting.

A city Department of Investigation report released last week found that NYCHA was falsely certifying that it was completing all the required inspections when top management — including Chairwoman Shola Olatoye — knew they were not. The apartments at Melrose, which opened in 1952 before lead paint was banned in the 1970s, are among the 55,000 with lead paint that NYCHA was supposed to inspect annually.

The Daily News visited the Melrose apartments (inset below) on Friday, where Martinez and other tenants described the dangerous conditions.

Shetia Simmons, 30, lives with her 2-year-old daughter, Trinity, and sons Taraji, 7, and Shatarbe, 9, in a second-floor apartment where the paint is peeling, flaking and chipped throughout the bathroom and near the radiator in the living room.

Trinity’s recent blood test turned up negative but Simmons worries that that could change given the condition of her apartment. She says her apartment was inspected in January and NYCHA promised to return and address the paint issue. But that was 11 months ago and the conditions remain the same.

“That stuff keeps falling and my daughter keeps playing with it,” Simmons said. “It’s been like a game with them. I understand you’re backed up but we really shouldn’t have to live like this. It’s really about the children. They pick this up and it’s not right.”

Tenant association president Jennie Cruz, 69, who’s lived in Melrose her entire life, says her granddaughter registered an alarming level of lead in her blood when she was just 3. Her family moved out of Melrose soon after.

On Friday she scrolled through a list of tenants who’ve complained about flaking paint and NYCHA’s inability to fix the problem.

“It’s very common here,” she said, bringing a reporter to yet another apartment where particles of white paint could be seen trapped in a spider web near the bathroom sink. In the kitchen paint flaked and peeled off the walls and ceiling in large and small pieces.

“I’m going to get my kids tested on Monday,” said Dana Newman, 25, who lives there with her 3-year-old daughter Savanah and 6-year-old son, Dashar.