Over the past few weeks, several states on the East Coast have experienced devastatingly low temperatures. Schools called off and ice encased vehicles in major cities during shockingly freezing temps. It’s difficult to fathom that there are people out there suffering without heat during these times. But, as one New York woman points out, her landlord let her and many others down when their apartment lost heat unexpectedly during freezing temps.
TikToker @moderndayhiipie shared the horror that has been affecting her family during freezing temperatures in New York. During these cold times, the boiler in their apartment complex unexpectedly stopped working. In her video, this mother breathes a breath of air into her young daughter’s room while wearing several layers of winter coats. It’s so freezing inside her daughter’s room that you can see her breath. They tried to find a temporary solution until the boiler is fixed by using space heaters. However, they’re only permitted to have one space heater in the home because the complex is old and can’t maintain a lot of electricity at once.
As Hiipie tells her audience, she called 311 for resources and tried to reach out to local news outlets for help. This is the fourth week where they’ve been living like this inside their home and it’s insane. There’s nowhere for these families to go and so they’re stuck wearing multiple layers of clothing in their own home. They deserve warmth. In an update video, she said the conditions in the home are unbearable and it was reading at 10 degrees in her mom’s bedroom. At this time, she hasn’t stated how the landlord expects to resolve this matter and get their heat back to working order.
This all comes after New York elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who promises to take action against slumlords in the city. He advocated for rent freezes and launched an entire initiative against bad landlords in New York City. Hopefully, incidences like the one that this TikToker is facing will become fewer and fewer over time. It’s a scary reality to know that you could be going without heat for an extended period of time while trying to keep your family in your home. It’s definitely something that no family should ever have to face.
One commenter stated, “Seeing your breath in a house is really insane.” Another commented, “I would stop paying the rent until they fix it.” Which, it seems like this would be the course of action that makes the most sense. However, as others have pointed out, there are few protections for renters. If they want to withhold rent, there are some steps to take. You have to be proactive and take matters to court, which requires money. The rent money would be put into an escrow account. As one commenter mentioned, the landlord would then “get funds released directly from there when the problem is resolved.” It seems like there’s no recourse for the families living in this freezing apartment, and that’s horribly wrong. All they can do is wait for results and hope that the landlord pulls through.
