She said she had been woken up at 3 a.m. by the disgusting odor. And it was bad. The family was planning on leaving the home for the day again to escape it.<\/p>\n
Curious to experience her plight firsthand, I shifted assignments and went to Merrill Avenue, a street I had visited two times earlier in the week.<\/p>\n
![\"Firsthand](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/5C55TBQRSVGUHFPGBMEMMG7SO4.jpeg\")
Advance\/SILive.com reporter Nicolette Cavallaro visited the community to document the sewage-like smell that has caused residents to evacuate their homes.(Advance\/SILive.com|Nicolette Cavallaro)<\/p>\n
When I approached her multifamily home, Deborah greeted me outside, sharing that it was her son\u2019s birthday, and they weren\u2019t going to celebrate it at home due to the intense odor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went inside their room this morning, and it smelled,\u201d she told me while standing by the front steps of the home. \u201cNot like a boys\u2019 room smell, but like a sewage smell.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also recounted her daily effort to mask the smell, by constantly bleaching her restroom and kitchen and keeping air fresheners going at all hours.<\/p>\n
This approach, however, has had concerning outcomes for her son, who suffers from asthma. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s coughing more now, I\u2019ve noticed. The air fresheners and the smell, it\u2019s not good for his breathing,\u201d she told me, just as the wind pushed another intense wave of the rotten egg-like scent to us. <\/p>\n
In front of her home, which is located between Graham Avenue and Arlene Street, the smell was particularly strong, leaving me feeling at times as if I was choking on the thick, musty air.<\/p>\n
Her neighbor, who had also contacted the Advance\/SILive.com earlier in the week to share her own experience living with the odor, came downstairs to greet me, just as the Phelps\u2011Seda family was preparing to leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know when she starts to smell it,\u201d the resident shared with me, referring to Phelps-Seda. \u201cIt\u2019s not too long until it\u2019s with me; it\u2019s coming for me next.\u201d <\/p>\n
Both women, who had been living out of suitcases and relying on Febreeze bottles for months, seemed to have reached their breaking point with the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been asking for help, for resources for months,\u201d Phelps\u2011Seda said. \u201cMy next step is to leave, is to move.\u201d <\/p>\n
I took some time to walk down the avenue, closer to the city parkland and swamp area that borders the usually pleasant neighborhood. The closer I walked to Graham Avenue, the more intense the odor became.<\/p>\n
My eyes began to water, and I used my scarf to cover my lower face, in hopes of lessening the overpowering and putrid scent. <\/p>\n
Every strong breeze and intermittent rainfall became a sign of what was to come, a sickening smell that reminded me of an old, decaying trash pile or a gas leak. The puddles of water that had started to accumulate near the corners of the cracked sidewalk and lowered pavement were hot spots, with fumes so strong that I had to turn away in fear of nausea. <\/p>\n
![\"Firsthand](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ILX43Q2DEREBPGOCH4KLCOD76U.jpeg\")
Advance\/SILive.com reporter Nicolette Cavallaro visited the community to document the sewage-like smell that has caused residents to evacuate their homes.(Advance\/SILive.com|Nicolette Cavallaro)<\/p>\n
At one point during my walk, I had to retreat to my car \u2014 the smells near some of the maintenance holes were distinctly fierce and rancid, making my contact lenses burn. <\/p>\n
After using eye solution, I took one last slightly painful lap around the community. <\/p>\n
There were some remnants of the support Phelps\u2011Seda and her neighbors had requested: a few scattered Department of Environmental Protection cones, polished, recently cleaned street sewer drains and a lone Department of Sanitation car. <\/p>\n
But as the putrid sewage aroma began seeping into my winter coat and sweater and a smell-induced headache began to settle in, it all seemed inadequate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 It was just after 10 a.m. on Friday when my phone rang. Deborah Phelps-Seda…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-140313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}