Michael Eaddy gets his NYCHA apartment repaired in record time after reaching out to local TV station by Brian Abate
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here have been a lot of cases in Red Hook where the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) has failed to make repairs in a timely matter. However, Michael Eaddy, a longtime resident at 453 Columbia St., shared a positive experience he had with NYCHA. Though Eaddy originally grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, he had family living on Lorraine St. which meant he spent a lot of time in Red Hook. He then moved to the neighborhood while he was in eighth grade so he has lived in Red Hook for more than 50 years. “My experience with getting repairs done has gotten better but it hasn’t been great,” Eaddy said. “When I first moved to this apartment about 30 years ago, we went through summer with no problems, then during the winter, I was waiting for some heat and nothing. I called it in and got a ticket, but nothing happened. The whole winter went by with no heat. It took a long time before that situation got resolved.” Additionally, Eaddy had a prob-
“All in all, from what it was then to what it is now, it’s 1000 percent lem with pests, especially mice in his apartment. They got in through a small hole in the wall in his kitchen. He used some scrap material that workers were using for a construction project to block the hole and that kept new mice from getting into the apartment. With help from an exterminator, he heard about Advion (pest control) and was able to use that to eliminate the pests. “We didn’t have any more issues with the mice until this most recent problem,” Eaddy said. “When they were doing the repairs, they left a small hole, and four mice got in the apartment.” Eaddy had a big leak in his kitchen that was damaging the kitchen fuse box.
There was also damage in the bathroom which needed to be repaired. Michael Eaddy and his daughter Michelle Eaddy reached out to Monica Morales from PIX11 News and their story was featured on the news channel. “I definitely think being on PIX11 put some pressure on NYCHA to get the repairs done, and afterward they came in and got to work,” Michelle Eaddy said. “They tore the top part of the wall over the kitchen sink, so that was how the four mice got in,” Michael Eaddy said. “We caught three of them but we’re still trying to catch the fourth one. “The problem started with a leak on the fifth floor from a busted pipe, so we didn’t know about it right away. Every time the people on the fifth floor would run the water in their kitchen, it would come out of the pipe on the ceiling of the people on the fourth floor. It eventually deteriorated the ceiling and then it went down to the third floor and tore that apartment up. Then it reached us on the second floor.” That’s when the leak reached the fuse box and caused it to spark. Eaddy
called the fire department and they shut off all the breakers and said to call the housing emergency services. “A few days later they went in and fixed the leak and from then on they were in here every day from Monday through Saturday,” Eaddy said. “They didn’t do a perfect job but they were here working every day except Sunday. They knocked down the wall in the kitchen. They took all the old wiring out and put new wiring in. I’m not sure about the first floor but I know they were working on two, three, four, and five all at the same time. They would come in around 9 in the morning and the plasterers didn’t leave till about 7 at night.” After two weeks on the job, all the parts of the house that were damaged from the leak were fixed up and working again. With the exception of a handprint which was left in the paint job on the wall, everything looked nice too. “All in all, from what it was then to what it is now, it’s 1000 percent better,” Eaddy said.
Civic Association forges ahead
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he Red Hook Civic Association, which restarted with new leadership earlier this year, made a notable impression in the NYC media world with a major story about its push for a new express bus taking Red Hookers to lower Manhattan. This is a long term with of the Civic Association, and almost came to pass in 2008 until the financial crisis took caused the MTA to cancel it before even starting. StreetsBlog is an advocacy blog, and they featured an article by former Brooklyn Paper reporter Kevin Duggan about the new push. StreetsBlog describes itself as having "an influential audience of public officials... passionate about improving
Red Hook Star-Revue
by George Fiala
the streets in their neighborhoods." The article quotes Civic Association member Dave Lutz and links to a letter sent out to public officials that the Association sent last month. Under the presidency of John McGettrick, the Red Hook Civic Association was instrumental in bringing attention to Red Hook from city agencies, as well as informing locals about things affecting the neighborhood. One difference today is that there are more people handling Association business, and committees have been set up to attend to different matters. A web site created by member Matias Kalwill lays out the schedule of all the meetings, including the monthly General Meeting, and the com-
mittees, which consist of Infrastructure and Development, Mobilization and Communication, Organization, and City Services. This offers full transparancy to Association doings, and makes it easy for people to become engaged. In addition, there is a section devoted to position papers, which lays out current goals of the Association. Right now these include the bus proposal, the Truckpocalyse, and emissions from the Cruise Terminal. The next General Meeting will take place on Monday, November 27 at the Red Hook Rec Center, which is next to the pool on Bay Street. All are invited and in fact encouraged to attend.
www.star-revue.com
November 2023, Page 5
