Dozens of tenants at the Mesa Verde apartment complex in Jackson Heights braved freezing conditions Sunday afternoon to demand that building owner A&E make immediate repairs, with several residents alleging that they have been without heat for over a month.
Mesa Verde tenants also complained of persistent leaks and rat, roach and mold infestations during the Feb. 22 rally, while others called on A&E to restore service to elevators in the complex.
A&E has not yet responded to a request for comment but previously pushed back strongly against tenant allegations after a similar rally took place outside Mesa Verde last year.
Residents at the six-story Mesa Verde complex – which consists of six interconnected rent-stabilized buildings on 90th and 91st Street – previously rallied outside the complex in November to demand similar repairs.
At that time, residents had urged A&E to repair the complex’s two elevators amid an eight-month-long outage. On Sunday, residents said A&E had repaired one of the elevators shortly after November’s rally, only for the elevator to break down again shortly afterward.
Protestors said the ongoing outage has left seniors and residents with disabilities “trapped” in their homes on the upper floors of the complex.
The six-building complex is served by two elevators, with residents required to take an elevator to the roof and cross a bridge to their building to reach the higher floors in buildings without an elevator. A QNS tour of the buildings in November revealed several loose, cracked or uneven steps in the complex, while several stairwells were missing wooden handrails for people to hold onto.
Ivonne Calderon, a Mesa Verde resident, said on Sunday that many of her neighbors have also lived without heat throughout the entirety of the recent cold snap, adding that tenants have three “non-negotiable” demands for A&E, including a rent abatement for any tenant that has experienced long periods without heat.
“Restore heating for every tenant immediately, compensate all impacted tenants with rent abatement and make all necessary repairs, including fixing the elevators,” Calderon said. “We are here. We are united. And we will not back down until all of our homes are safe.”
Mirela Bulagea, who has lived at Mesa Verde for 20 years, said she became a tenant organizer at the complex because of the ongoing conditions inside the building. She said a neighbor suffering from bronchitis recently ended up in the emergency room and could not return to her apartment because the heating was not working.
“Conditions are very dangerous,” Bulagea said. “Anyone that is sick can’t get better in freezing cold temperatures… It’s not right.
“All we demand is that they provide decent living conditions for everyone,” she added. “We want housing justice.”
Ursulina Mora, a resident at the complex and a member of the Mesa Verde Neighbors Union, said she joined protests against A&E after a years-long effort for repairs in her own unit.
Mora has complained to the building’s super about persistent leaks in her bathroom but alleged that the super only carried out superficial repairs in November after months of complaints.
Although the super repaired a damaged wall in her bathroom, the leaks have continued and recently spread to one of the bedrooms in her home, causing permanent damage to a television, Mora said.
On a tour of her apartment on Sunday, Mora also highlighted a hole in her bathroom that she says has been the source of rodent and roach infestations for months. She alleged that she has received no response from A&E despite raising the issue numerous times, adding that she recently got a cat to help deal with infestations.
Calderon, meanwhile, said her bathroom sink has been unable to drain water for over three months, forcing her family to brush their teeth and wash their hands in the bath. Calderon also complained that her oven has not worked for several months, despite frequent complaints to the building’s super.
“I call the super, but they don’t answer me,” Calderon said. “They don’t even message me back.”
Helen, another Mesa Verde tenant, said her neighbors are “tired” of raising concerns about living conditions in the buildings.
“We are tired of not having heat, of not having working elevators, of having roaches, mice and mold infestations,” she added.
Residents further alleged that senior tenants have been stuck in their homes during the ongoing icy weather because pathways outside Mesa Verde have not been sufficiently cleared. They also said doors to the buildings often break, making it easy for people who do not live in Mesa Verde to gain access to common areas.
Council Member Shekar Krishnan, whose district covers the Mesa Verde development, was not in attendance at Sunday’s protest but issued a statement in support of tenants, describing A&E as the “worst landlords in the city.”
“During times like this, when a blizzard is going to hit New York City for the first time in almost 10 years, you all deserve to have a warm place to sleep and hunker down,” Krishnan said. “But A&E continues to deny you that right.”
Krishnan added that A&E, which owns over 180 properties across the city, has been “especially neglectful” in the Mesa Verde complex. The real estate firm has acquired over 140,000 total violations across its New York City portfolio, 35,000 of which were issued in the last year.
In January, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD) reached a $2.1 million settlement with A&E for violations in 14 buildings it owns across three boroughs, including nine buildings in Queens. Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at the time that A&E’s 140,000 violations did not just represent a failure, but “cruelty” to the roughly 40,000 tenants that live in A&E buildings.
HPD has not yet responded to a request for comment.
In November, residents alleged that conditions at the building had created serious safety hazards, particularly for elderly neighbors.
Celina Della Croce, one of the leaders of a newly-formed tenant union within the complex, said the presence of numerous cracked tiles in the Mesa Verde stairways makes the climb and descent dangerous for elderly residents during elevator outages.
She said an 80-year-old woman fell and fractured her arm while climbing the stairs, while another elderly woman suffered permanent ankle damage after falling down the stairs.
Della Croce said another elderly woman tripped and broke her hip due to a tripping hazard near her doorway, which Della Croce accused A&E of failing to address.
She also told of how a woman required surgery when her bathroom ceiling caved in on her after she had pulled a pull chain to turn on the light.
In response to that November protest, A&E said it had worked “diligently” to address issues at Mesa Verde since taking over the complex in 2016. The company said it has invested $13 million to address issues at the property and said one of the building’s two elevators would be “back online” within a week.
Residents said the elevator was repaired within that timeline but added that it quickly broke down again.
A&E said the second elevator in the complex has not been replaced in decades and needs extensive rehabilitation at a cost of around $400,000. The company said the rent-stabilized complex does not generate enough income to fund that repair and said management is looking at other options to finance it. The company said any project to repair the second elevator would be “months long.”
A&E said it has replaced the roof and windows at the Mesa Verde complex as well as enclosing previously exposed stairwells in order to reduce the risk of leaks and mold. It also said it has hired an exterminator to visit the complex twice a month to deal with any rodent or cockroach infestations and encouraged residents to sign up for in-unit treatments.
A&E said the property was “night and day” since it took over a decade ago but said some problems persist due to the building’s age.
Della Croce, however, said the exterminator was subpar and added that she frequently had to ask on-site exterminators to deal with a roach infestation in her unit. She added that the issue remains unresolved and said her parents found a dead roach in a wine glass when they visited her apartment for dinner.
“We’re not going to take it anymore,” Della Croce told QNS last year. “These are homes and we deserve to live in dignity.”
