{"id":181901,"date":"2026-04-01T09:17:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T09:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/181901\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T09:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T09:17:12","slug":"how-nyc-closed-tens-of-thousands-of-no-heat-complaints-without-conducting-an-inspection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/181901\/","title":{"rendered":"How NYC Closed Tens of Thousands of ‘No Heat’ Complaints Without Conducting an Inspection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Record numbers of New Yorkers called 311 to report heat and hot water outages during this winter\u2019s cold snap. But a quirk of the city housing agency\u2019s response procedure meant that buildings with multiple complaints saw thousands of them closed without direct follow up. The Mamdani administration thinks the system is ripe for reform.<\/p>\n

\"radiator\"The radiator at a building in Flatbush, Brooklyn, where tenants complained of frequent heat outages during the January 2026 cold spell. (Patrick Spauster\/City Limits)<\/p>\n

Tenants are tired of hearing \u201ccall 311.\u201d The city\u2019s helpline is supposed to be a lifeline for tenants dealing with serious building conditions. But for many renters, it feels futile.<\/p>\n

When it comes to lack of heat and hot water, it doesn\u2019t just feel like tenants\u2019 complaints are going unanswered; in some cases, they actually are.<\/p>\n

A City Limits analysis of data on 311 calls during the city\u2019s recent cold spell, where temperatures fell below freezing for nine straight days, shows the majority of complaints for no heat and hot water in the system were flagged as \u201cduplicates.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the city\u2019s housing agency, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), receives multiple heat and hot water complaints at a given property, it flags the first complaint as the primary and groups the rest together. If officials close the first complaint in the set, they close them all.<\/p>\n

From Jan. 25 to Feb. 2, a nine-day period of below-freezing temperatures where the city received over 30,000 complaints\u2014the most on record<\/a>\u201458 percent were flagged as duplicates.<\/p>\n

As a result, many of those complaints never resulted in an apartment inspection. HPD inspectors, an agency spokesperson said, always try to call before conducting an in-person inspection. Of those 21,247 complaints flagged as duplicates, nearly 10,000 were closed after HPD called someone in the building before sending a team. But under the duplicate system, reaching one tenant or the landlord often means several other complaints in the building get closed at the same time, without confirmation that the heat is back on in all cases.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really concerning. And something we hope that will change,\u201d said Andrea Shapiro, director of programs and advocacy at The Metropolitan Council On Housing. Shapiro\u2019s team at the Met Council fields thousands of calls from tenants through their helpline every year.<\/p>\n

Another 11,000 complaints were closed by other HPD contact with the building, but it was not clear whether that was by phone or in person; 11 duplicate complaints are still open.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city really should be checking in on every single heat complaint. And there\u2019s no excuse for just assuming you\u2019ve been to one apartment in the building, you\u2019ve been to all of them,\u201d said Shapiro.<\/p>\n

\"visualization\"\/<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for HPD said they are always looking at ways to improve their system. But the agency closed over 80,000 heat and hot water problems in 18,000 buildings, issuing 3,100 violations for no heat using their current system in January\u2014which had the most heat and hot water complaints recorded of any month on record.<\/p>\n

The city encourages tenants with heat and hot water issues to first try contacting their owner, manager, or super<\/a>. If the landlord won\u2019t act, they\u2019re told to call 311. When tenants don\u2019t get an inspection but issues persist, there\u2019s only one path forward: call again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe end up in this dynamic where it feels like the city is meant to be a backup landlord,\u201d said Cea Weaver, director of the Mayor\u2019s Office to Protect Tenants<\/a>. \u201cI really want to think about ways that tenants and the city can coordinate better, to put more pressure on the owner to make the repairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the cold spell, if tenants complained about heat at their building, they usually did so more than once. Half of buildings had more than one call to 311 during the period, with three complaints on average. At 707 East 242 St., tenants called over 150 times in nine days.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cold spell really highlighted how bad it\u2019s been for the past few years. But because we\u2019ve had relatively mild winters, landlords have really gotten away with a lot,\u201d said Shapiro.<\/p>\n

Responding to tens of thousands of complaints, as HPD does every month, is an enormous undertaking. And inspectors are undisputedly hustling, especially during emergency periods like the cold spell.<\/p>\n

HPD only duplicates complaints for heat and hot water issues, which usually make up roughly 40 percent of all 311 calls about housing conditions, but were more than half during the cold spell.<\/p>\n

The duplication procedure, HPD says, is designed to help manage the massive volume.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is appropriate that if the tenant calls 311 and says, \u2018My heat isn\u2019t on,\u2019 the first person that HPD may call is the owner to say, \u2018Turn on the heat,’\u201d said Weaver.<\/p>\n

When the heat does come on, and HPD clears a complaint by calling the tenant or landlord, \u201cin some ways, that\u2019s because HPD has already immediately taken action, and the data doesn\u2019t always capture that,\u201d Weaver added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But some tenants and advocates say it only incentivizes more call volume, and can overlook some serious code violations.<\/p>\n

For example, when City Limits visited 155 Linden Blvd. in Brooklyn in early February, the heat had been out for several days. But complaints for Nicole Gallan\u2019s apartment were closed out after HPD records indicate they called another tenant in the building who said that the heat had been restored.<\/p>\n

\"heatCity inspectors issued violations at Gallen\u2019s building Flatbush in February. (Patrick Spauster\/City Limits)<\/p>\n

After City Limits wrote about Gallan\u2019s apartment, HPD returned and found that even though heat had ticked back on in the building, a broken radiator in her unit meant that her bedroom was below the legal temperature threshold. HPD issued two violations for the apartment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe actual answer to the problem is we need better repairs,\u201d said Shapiro. \u201cSo that we don\u2019t need to have people just calling 311 all the time and ever escalating those calls.\u201d<\/p>\n

A frustrating system<\/p>\n

In recent years HPD has decreased its response time modestly, even as heat and hot water complaints have spiked. The median wait until a first inspection for heat and hot water problems was just under two days in the fiscal year ending in June 2025, according to the Mayor\u2019s Management Report.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHPD is making very good choices about how to do as much as they possibly can with limited resources,\u201d said Weaver, though she acknowledges there\u2019s room for improvement.<\/p>\n

Tenants still frequently lament when inspectors come and they aren\u2019t home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can get very frustrating, especially making complaints and then nobody\u2019s showing up and then closing out the complaints,\u201d said Jared Riser, coordinating senior attorney with the New York Legal Assistance Group.<\/p>\n

Tori Brown, a Crown Heights tenant who attended one of Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s recent \u201cRental Ripoff\u201d hearings in Brooklyn, told City Limits\u00a0 they went without hot water for several days in February.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had 311 come, but then we get into the issue of like, you show up and we\u2019re not home because we\u2019re at work, and nobody\u2019s actually communicating that. So it kind of just hasn\u2019t really resulted in anything,\u201d said Brown.<\/p>\n

HPD said officials are using the Rental Ripoff hearings to hear directly from New Yorkers. Their top priority, a spokesperson said is keeping tenants safe in their homes.<\/p>\n

Among all 30,000-plus heat complaints that HPD closed during the cold spell, violations were issued in response to just 1,381, according to data on closure reasons. Inspectors closed another 3,800 in person when tenants said the issue had been resolved, while 2,000 were resolved by an inspection that did not result in a violation (most likely it was not cold enough when inspectors came). Another 3,300 complaints were closed out when an inspector failed to gain access to the building or apartment.<\/p>\n

Simple communication fixes could improve the system, Weaver suggested, like letting tenants know why their complaint was closed. \u201cMaybe it does, for efficiency\u2019s sake, make sense to record these things as duplicate complaints,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[But] the message that renters are getting is: your complaint was closed. It doesn\u2019t say why,\u201d Weaver added. \u201cI saw a heat complaint get closed four minutes after it was made, because it was a duplicate complaint and I talked to a tenant about it on the phone. It\u2019s very frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shapiro said \u201cpersistence\u201d is the key, given how the 311 system works.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalling repeatedly gets them the inspector. Or an entire building calling together\u2014so it\u2019s not randomly,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Even when tenants do get an inspector out, it doesn\u2019t always resolve the issue. With heat, it\u2019s extra tricky. Sometimes landlords leave the heat on during the day, and it will be warm enough when inspectors come by. But then the heat will go off again at night.<\/p>\n

Shapiro said that she encourages tenants to keep a log of the temperature: \u201cBecause landlords have to be notified when an inspector is coming, they turn on the heat for that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Weaver pointed to an existing code enforcement program where HPD puts heat sensors<\/a> in tenant\u2019s apartments. \u201cI\u2019d like to try to figure out a way to get a sort of closer look at the heat violation recording process in a way that we can prevent this practice of landlords turning the heat on, turning the heat off, turning the heat on, turn the heat off,\u201d said Weaver.<\/p>\n

Persistence also proves instrumental in holding landlords accountable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though it can be tricky to get that first violation, a spokesperson for HPD said that\u2019s all they need to use their emergency repair program\u2014where the city fixes an issue and bills the landlord\u2014or pursue civil penalties. Riser helps tenants sue their landlords for outstanding repairs and says that closed complaints are dead ends, but getting a violation issued is a foothold.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we have that violation, it\u2019s \u2018You\u2019ve got to fix this,’\u201d said Riser. \u201cThere\u2019s so many more things that I can do as an attorney with this violation.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the best chance of getting an inspector to come into your home and issue a violation, experts and HPD officials suggest submitting a complaint for an individual apartment, rather than a building as a whole.<\/p>\n

\"\"Experts say regularly recording temperatures can help tenants show proof of insufficient heat. (Adi Talwar\/City Limits)<\/p>\n

Building-wide complaints, which are often anonymous, get lumped together. But by providing an apartment number, tenants can increase their chances that an inspector will come and measure the temperature in their apartment and issue a violation, experts say.<\/p>\n

But the duplication system also confounds some tenants who have modern heating systems. In older buildings with a central oil or gas powered boiler, an outage often means everyone in the building has no heat or hot water. But many modern heating systems aren\u2019t so centralized, and have individual heating electric units in each apartment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And these more energy-efficient systems are only getting more popular as building owners prepare to comply with new pollution requirements from Local Law 97, which introduces fines for buildings with emissions beyond a certain threshold.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems like the city is just paying attention to boilers, which are important. But individual apartments have their own problems, often with radiators not working,\u201d added Shapiro.<\/p>\n

The modern heating systems also sometimes surprise tenants with new out-of-pocket costs. In New York City leases, heat and hot water bills are often included in the rent, and electricity is paid separately by tenants. With electric heat, winter electric bills can push some tenants\u2019 utility costs through the roof.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can we tackle our affordability problem without sacrificing the climate transitions that the city needs?\u201d asked Weaver.<\/p>\n

When heat and hot water complaints are grouped, inspectors will check the apartment of the primary complaint first. If they are unable to access the apartment, they will go down the list of complaints in that group, measure the temperature of building common spaces or try to reach other tenants who supplied their apartment number, if available.<\/p>\n

Many tenants submit complaints anonymously because they\u2019re scared of retaliation from their landlord. Who complains, when, and what about is public information. Landlords also receive an automated call asking them to fix an issue whenever a tenant in their building files a complaint.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way to do it is to let them know. A landlord can\u2019t fix something they don\u2019t know about,\u201d said Shapiro, who added there are strong laws in place to protect tenants from retaliation.<\/p>\n

Solutions<\/p>\n

The Mamdani administration has floated ideas to improve what Weaver described as an\u00a0 \u201cinherently reactive system,\u201d for tenant complaints.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mayor\u2019s focus on making government work better for New Yorkers\u2014a lot of that has to be sort of improving people\u2019s experiences when they try to get a complaint at their building resolved,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

While running for office, the mayor\u2019s campaign platform called for a system where New Yorkers could schedule inspections with HPD to ensure they would be home.<\/p>\n

Mamdani spent a morning answering 311 calls from New Yorkers earlier this month and at a \u201cRental Ripoff\u201d hearing in the Bronx, said his housing plan will tackle \u201chow to build a more effective 311 response.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a solution is not so straightforward.<\/p>\n

HPD\u2019s system is at once modern and outdated. Inspectors in the field use an app that gives them real-time data on where complaints are outstanding, and an algorithm tells them where to head next after they complete an inspection\u2014decisions based on the urgency of complaints and their current location.<\/p>\n

Moving to a schedule-based inspection system at scale would throw a massive wrench into the agency\u2019s carefully-crafted response system. Instead of efficiently routing inspectors from one building inspection to another in real time, triangulating inspections with tenant schedules may actually increase response times in some cases.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t schedule every single inspection in the city\u2014maybe one day,\u201d said Weaver.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, she says, the administration is looking closely at other solutions to make inspections more predictable. That could be piloting a scheduling system, working with tenant associations to coordinate \u201croof to cellar\u201d inspections where HPD spends a day looking at everything in the building, or having a certain number of complaints trigger a scheduled inspection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there is a happy medium of both tenants being able to schedule and geographic efficiency,\u201d said Shapiro. \u201cSaying we can\u2019t do it because we just want to go to the closest building first seems like an excuse to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

HPD said that after an attempt to inspect a non-duplicate problem, tenants currently do have the ability to ask for a scheduled inspection. They said they were working closely with City Hall about improvements to the system, including scheduling.<\/p>\n

More inspectors to deal with the rising volume could also help, as would a sense of urgency about reform, advocates say.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf inspections are being done, people are getting heat and we won\u2019t have to have an escalating number of calls on 311,\u201d said Shapiro.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>. To reach the editor, contact [email\u00a0protected]<\/a><\/p>\n

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits\u2019 reprint policy here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Record numbers of New Yorkers called 311 to report heat and hot water outages during this winter\u2019s cold…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-181901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181901","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=181901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}