Landlord leaves family with cockroaches, broken heat, and desperation
They were duped, swindled by a landlord who promised immediate repairs for a Hamilton Ave. home being rented without a required inspection.
After receiving $2600, half for the first month rent and the other portion used as a security deposit, the landlord’s words seemed as dead as cockroaches inside the kitchen. “Cucarachas?” an interpreter inquired.
“Si, No fumigaro,” the tenant replied.
No visit by an exterminator has forced the tenant to purchase cans of roach spray. A can stands ready for action in the kitchen and atop a bookcase in the living room.
Now, just weeks before her third child arrives, the mother and her boyfriend may have to struggle to find better living conditions, specifically a home with heat.
We waited in a dimly lighted Hamilton Ave. basement crammed with property abandoned by former tenants, huddled and hoped as if part of a prayer vigil, anticipated that tiny click and identifiable hum of a heater turning on.
Nothing. Nada, despite the fact that we had lowered our voices to whispers, a precaution, just to make sure that a loud word would not cover the wish, click and hum.
Not even a prayer to St. Jude, patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes could revive this heater.
“We’re thinking about not paying rent for November, just let the landlord keep our security payment. We can start looking for another place,” she said.
While healthy families usually have rooms painted, peaceful and prepared for new babies, this house delivers challenges.
Electrical issues left the house dark for five days as the couple either lived in the dark or found residence with family.
One cover for the heating panel lay on the basement floor, left by an alleged repairman who showed up, dismissed himself to find a part, then never returned.
Even if the click and hum occurred, no guarantee exists that baseboard heating units in the bathroom or the twins’ bedroom will function properly.
The woman reached down to remove a baseboard heating cover that showed rusted coils covered with dust.
No functioning house heater means rooms outfitted with other electrical units, including a tower appliance in the boys’ upstairs bedroom which one enters through the master bedroom closet.
One can predict a fire tragedy created by a discarded blanket that ignites and traps the boys in that strange upstairs bedroom.
Numerous other code violations exist in this hell hole of a home rented out by money-grubbing landlords who have no sense of decency.
No fumigation? No problem. No, click and hum? No heat? No problem.
We accept these filthy landlords. Will Trenton live with this possibility?
(An expectant mom, her boyfriend and twin sons died early Friday morning after fire raced through their City of Trenton home.
The residence had no working smoke detectors and rooms were equipped with space heaters after the house’s main heater malfunctioned.
Officials said the blaze started in an upstairs bedroom.)
L.A. Parker is a Trentonian columnist. Reach him at laparker@trentonian.com. Follow him on Twitter@laparker6.