IN THE COLD
Heat a casualty in foreclosures
As Boston buildings are taken over by mortgage firms, tenants face slow repairs of systems and limited fuel deliveries
By Binyamin Appelbaum, Globe Staff | December 22, 2007
Tenants in some foreclosed Boston apartment buildings are living without adequate heat because the new landlords - mortgage companies often based in other states - have not repaired broken systems or paid for the delivery of heating oil.
Karla Herrera, who gave birth to a daughter Wednesday, has lived without heat in her Roxbury apartment since November, when the system broke. "Sometimes, I turn on the oven for 20 minutes for heat," she said in Spanish, speaking through an interpreter.
Some foreclosed buildings also lack electricity, or hot water, or even running water, and the tenants may have no one to call: The new landlords often fail to provide tenants with a contact number, as required by Massachusetts law. And when landlords can be reached, the response is often so limited - half a tank of heating oil, for example - that the problems recur within a few days.
City officials say they have dealt with a dozen cases in the last two weeks of utility problems at foreclosed apartment buildings. Michael Kelley, acting administrator of the city's Rental Housing Resource Center, said the numbers are rising as foreclosures pile up and temperatures drop.
He said the city is searching for ways to compel companies to fulfill their responsibilities as landlords. The city also is trying to persuade the companies to improve voluntarily. "It is a sad state of affairs," he said, "that it takes a government agency to reach out to a responsible party to get some action."
At Boston Medical Center, a growing number of children who live in foreclosed buildings are being treated for problems related to a lack of heat, hot water, or electricity, according to the hospital's legal aid clinic, the Medical-Legal Partnership for Children.
One malnourished child was living in a building without running water, making it hard for the mother to mix formula. A child with sickle-cell anemia was treated for pain after temperature fluctuations in an unheated apartment caused the disease to flare up. The medical center's emergency room has treated children whose asthma inhalers cannot be recharged because their apartments have no electricity.
State law prevents utility companies from suspending service in the winter months if a tenant can prove financial hardship. Ellen Lawton, the legal aid clinic's executive director, said that isn't always enough. "The law on the books says they can't, but they do," she said. "And then who do you go to to get it turned back on?"
Massachusetts requires landlords to heat apartments to 68 degrees by day and 64 degrees at night. But on a recent 25-degree morning, Herrera's apartment was comfortable only with a winter coat. The thermostat was broken. When the heating system was engaged, the vents blew cold air into the living room.
Herrera's heating problems actually date to February, before the foreclosure. It is not uncommon for such problems to precede foreclosure, since landlords in financial trouble often allow their buildings to deteriorate.
In August, Herrera received a letter from a representative of IndyMac Bank, a California company, informing her that it now owned the building. She wrote back to say that the gas stove wasn't working. That problem was fixed in early October. Shortly after Thanksgiving, however, the heat went off and the electricity stopped working in every room except the kitchen.
Herrera said she bought space heaters for her bedroom and her son's bedroom, both operating on extension cords run from the kitchen.
She is scheduled to return from the hospital tomorrow with her new baby girl and said she is resigned to the possibility that the heat still won't be working.
"At the beginning I was very upset but I see that in any case, with pressure or without pressure, things basically continue all the same," she said.
Contacted by the Globe, IndyMac said it was committed to fixing any problems.
"The last thing we want to do is have people living in the buildings we now own, freezing," said Grove Nichols, a company spokesman. "If it's our responsibility to provide heat to the building and to the occupant, then that's what we're going to do."
Mortgage companies say they are trying to make the best of a situation forced on them when the previous landlords defaulted on their loans. Most companies try to empty buildings quickly by paying tenants to leave, and evicting those who don't.
But legal aid attorneys can stall the process for months with procedural issues and counterclaims.
In late November, when the heat went off at Herrera's apartment, the company responded to one request for repairs with a note suggesting she should leave if she wasn't happy.
It also is common, according to legal aid attorneys, for companies to deliver a small amount of heating oil - 100 gallons, for example, into a tank that holds 250 gallons. When that runs out, the tenant must begin the entire process again.
Esme Caramello, a legal aid attorney with the WilmerHale Legal Services Center, who represents Herrera, said another client has lost heat four times this fall because the company did not provide sufficient oil. The mortgage company in that case, also IndyMac, has been operating under a court order to provide heat since mid-November.
The oil ran out on Dec. 6 and was not restored until Dec. 11, after Caramello returned to court. The heat went out again on Dec.16, and was not restored until Wednesday.
Once again, the tank was not filled. The oil is likely to run out around Christmas.
Heating is not the only problem. The walks outside Shareka Murdaugh's Roxbury apartment building have not been shoveled since the season's first snow. At more than nine months pregnant, Murdaugh can't do it.
All but one of the other tenants, a woman with a new baby, left after receiving $1,000 from New England Group, which represents the new landlord, GMAC Financial Services.
Murdaugh's reply to the offer: "Are you serious? Where do we have to go?"
The women say they started calling New England Group in early November to ask for heating oil.
On Nov. 30, the company arranged for the delivery of 100 gallons, they said. It lasted four days.
On Wednesday, after the intervention of City Life/La Vida Urbana, a tenant advocacy group, the company delivered another 100 gallons. But the radiator in Murdaugh's bedroom isn't working. She has covered her windows in plastic. Two space heaters are pointed at the bed. She uses them so continuously that one of the extension cords melted.
Michael Abbott of New England Group denied responsibility for heating the building.
He referred calls to a law firm, which referred calls to GMAC, which said there had been some miscommunication.
"We will go ahead and immediately take care of these things," said Stephen Dupont, a spokesman for GMAC. "We do everything we can to make sure that we're living up to our obligations."
Binyamin Appelbaum can be reached at bappelbaum@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
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