A woman in Brooklyn says her landlord took care of a badly-needed repair after NY1 For You stepped in. NY1’s Susan Jhun filed the following report.
No longer locked up, Brooklyn tenant Renee Griffin is relieved to have the key to a serious safety hazard.
A couple of weeks ago, NY1 reported that the security gate on Griffin's window was chained with a padlock for which she had no key. Griffin says the root of the problem was a broken latch on the original lock on her security gate which her landlord refused to fix.
"He took the old lock off, he put a padlock on, a chain with a padlock on, and gave me a key. 311 came back out, said this cannot stay like that, took the key and left. He never came and fixed it after that," said Griffin.
Since moving in last year, the single mom says she was worried what she would do in the event of a fire with no key to open the padlock.
"He just keep telling me he was going to fix it and I shouldn't be calling 311 on him, I could come straight to him. I went to him so many times," said Griffin.
NY1 found in March, HPD sent an inspector to Griffin's home and issued a class B violation for unlawful obstruction bars and unlawful gates. HPD instructed the landlord to remove the bars and gates from at least one window or provide an approved gate type standard with the Housing Maintenance Code.
At the time, we spoke with Griffin's landlord, who said the reason her latch had yet to be fixed was that he had not received access to her unit. He told us he would have the lock fixed and a week later it was.
It's a secure solution to an unsafe problem.