{"id":302792,"date":"2026-07-22T12:37:54","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T12:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/302792\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T12:37:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T12:37:54","slug":"manhattan-tenants-sound-alarm-after-devastating-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/302792\/","title":{"rendered":"Manhattan tenants sound alarm after devastating fire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK (PIX11) \u2014 A devastating fire left tenants in a Hell\u2019s Kitchen apartment building unable to use the fire escape, forcing them to navigate smoke-filled hallways. <\/p>\n<p>One former resident of 500 West 48\u00a0St. also told PIX11 News he\u2019s still waiting for a rent refund after a vacate order left him homeless.<\/p>\n<p>\t<a href=\"https:\/\/pix11.com\/\" class=\"promo-link__link\" target=\"&quot;_blank&quot;\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><br \/>\n\t\tStay connected with community stories that matter: Visit our homepage\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Flames billowed from second-floor windows in the overnight hours of April 15, destroying three apartments and prompting a vacate order from the city\u2019s Department of Housing Preservation &amp; Development.<\/p>\n<p>Ian Schmoke was among the affected tenants and says more than three months later, landlord Joseph Giaimo has not refunded the unused portion of that month\u2019s rent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were evicted on April 16, or 17, so it was pretty much exactly the halfway point,\u201d Schmoke told PIX11.<\/p>\n<p>New York law requires landlords to refund the unused portion of rent when catastrophic events like this happen, so says housing attorney Kian Daniel Khatibi.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe landlord has a reasonable amount of time to get you their funds back,\u201d Khatibi said, adding the word reasonable leaves a grey area, but he points to the 2019 rent law requiring landlords to refund security deposits within 14 days.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost landlords, if they\u2019re advised by good counsel, would probably say respond to it and get it back within 14 days,\u201d Khatibi said.<\/p>\n<p>Giaimo did not respond to a phone call requesting an interview. At his 10th\u00a0Avenue office Tuesday, an unidentified woman answered the door. When asked about tenants\u2019 requests for refunds, she said, \u201cNobody got in touch with us about that,\u201d adding, \u201cWe\u2019re handling it through our insurance company.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t<a href=\"https:\/\/pix11.com\/news\/local-news\/how-to-make-pix11-a-preferred-source-on-google\/\" class=\"promo-link__link\" target=\"&quot;_blank&quot;\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><br \/>\n\t\tMake PIX11 your preferred news source on Google: Here\u2019s how\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Schmoke says it\u2019s not true.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t understand the point of acting like nothing\u2019s happened, like we\u2019ve all reached out,\u201d Schmoke said. \u201cMy roommate has texts and emails and calls.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Serious safety concerns were also uncovered. Video provided by Schmoke shows the window leading to the fire escape sealed shut. Schmoke and others had to escape through smoky hallways.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s almost like we were blind, could barely breathe,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Khatibi called the condition likely a violation of several laws.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVery dangerous thing to have there,\u201d he said, \u201cClearly negligence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>HPD has issued several fire safety-related violations for broken self-closing doors, missing or broken smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and inaccessible fire escapes in three different units.<\/p>\n<p>Khatibi advises tenants dealing with issues like this to file claims with the state Attorney General\u2019s office and small claims court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (PIX11) \u2014 A devastating fire left tenants in a Hell\u2019s Kitchen apartment building unable to use&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-302792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302792","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=302792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}