Inwood Tenants Without Gas For Months Sue Landlord

INWOOD, NY — A group of tenants in Inwood are suing their landlord for shutting of the building's gas six months ago and never restoring it, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in city housing court.

Residents of 100 Cooper Street, located between West 207th and Isham streets, claim that they have been unable to use their gas stoves or the building's gas-operated washers and dryers since October 27. Despite promises from their landlord, an entity by the name of 100 Cooper Residences LLC, the gas has not been turned on.

The only effort the landlords have made to help tenants is to hand out hot plates for cooking in December — 11 weeks after the gas was cut off — according to the lawsuit. Tenants claim that the hot plates are unsafe and not a proper substitution for a gas-operated stove.

“We have been patient, we’ve made calls to the management agency, to the city and to ConEd, but little to no action has been taken,"Kevin Raney, a resident of 100 Cooper Street for 16 years, told Patch in a statement.

"Yes, the management agency has offered a single hot plate to each resident. Yes, we’ve been told 'soon the gas will be back on' and again it is six months later. We are not asking for much, just the amenities that were offered to us in our leases, and one of those amenities was natural gas to cook our food and dry our clothes."

The tenant lawsuit demands that gas be restored to the building immediately and that any other violations issued against the building by agencies such as the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development and Department of Buildings be fixed. The tenants are being represented by Manhattan Legal Services.

"We have been working with several tenants at 100 Cooper for over six months now because of the lack of gas," Manhattan Legal Services attorney Aisha Elston-Wesley told Patch in a statement. "These are hardworking tenants, many of whom have lived in the building for several years. They have been patient and have tried to amicably work with the landlord to get the gas restored, but enough is enough."

Check out the full lawsuit below:

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