NYCHA family in the Bronx struggles with bathroom in shambles
MOTT HAVEN, Bronx (WABC) -- A woman is demanding answers from the New York City Housing Authority after she says crews came in and ripped apart her moldy bathroom.
They demolished it, but never finished the job, leaving her without a working bathroom.
It comes on the same day the fight over how to fix NYCHA heated up between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio.
"I have a toilet but no sink, no tub. I kind of feel like I'm crippled right now," said Jahaira Santiago.
For her it's one step-up from an outhouse. The bathroom in her three-bedroom Bronx apartment is crawling with mold and draped in plastic.
She and her three children are unable to take showers and haven't been able to use the sink since Housing Authority contractors shoved it under her kitchen table and left. That was in November.
"Where do your kids brush their teeth?", we asked.
"Well it used to be in the bathtub but now they have no other choice but to use the kitchen sink," said Santiago.
The kitchen sink is the only sink that works, in an apartment where NYCHA apparently starts projects but never finishes them. The tile was ripped from the shower last week. And it's been wrapped in plastic ever since.
Cuomo has promised half a billion dollars to fund repairs in NYCHA buildings so long as an outside company makes them. He and the mayor are blaming one another for the deteriorating conditions.
Jahaira says she calls NYCHA every day and she is routinely told to "relax."
"Just to relax, that I'm being overdramatic, I'm being difficult," she says.
And when she called 311 out of desperation, the operator suggested she call Channel 7.
"I honestly died, that was like the best part of my morning," she said. "Call Eyewitness News, you see it on the sign, on the commercials, it might work".
Late Thursday night came the response from NYCHA: "This is unacceptable."
Workers, I am told, will be there first thing in the morning. So that's one down, untold numbers of apartments to go.
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