The Investigators: Exposing a NYCHA nightmare

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Kitchen repairs unfinished and a toddler taken to the hospital because of mold are just some of the issues residents in New York City Housing Authority apartments face.

For the third time in a month, we have a story about a family in public housing living under disgusting, even unhealthy conditions, and their drawn-out struggle to get maintenance to fix major leaks leaves you wondering if what really needs fixing is the housing authority.

"So this is what they left us with for 16 days already," said Christina Valentin, showing off her in-progress repairs.

Make that 17 days now that Valentin and her family have waited for NYCHA maintenance workers at Forest Houses in the Bronx to finish repairing walls damaged by leaking pipes years ago.

"I can't pinpoint an answer (as to how long), but I can say two to three, maybe four years," she said. "My mom has been complaining about the leaks."

They've yet to find the source of the leak, but workers ripped out the moist, mold-soaked walls on July 14. Two days later, Valentin rushed her baby daughter to the hospital, where she spent three days being treated for breathing and congestion problems.

"I told the doctor about the construction, and she said it very well could be from the construction," she said. "My daughter has never had asthma, never had problems with her lungs, she never had been hospitalized."

The unfinished repairs have left the family without use of their kitchen, and they have no working shower and exposed electrical wires.

"This is dangerous," she said. "We're scared every day to turn on the light, and it might spark."

Earlier this week, Eyewitness News reported on another family living in public housing in East Harlem who had been pleading for months to get the city to make permanent repairs to a leaking sewage problem that threatened their health.

And last month, we reported on how a family in Queens public housing had lived for a year with a crazy patchwork of tin catch-basins and buckets.

Like those families, Valentin says she too feels trapped in a bureaucratic hell.

"'We'll come back,' they never come back, they never come back to fix it," she said. "We just put in another ticket yesterday, they're supposed to come in today to check it out again, and they haven't come."

NYCHA officials say they've dramatically reduced the backlog of repairs in past year by hundreds of thousands. But a recent audit by the comptroller accused the agency of reducing the backlog on paper by dropping the repair if no one was at home when workers stopped by.

UPDATE: A spokesman for the city Housing Authority tells Eyewitness News that they have initiated an expedited process to fix the leak and to repair the walls this weekend.