![\"heat\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/20250929CityLimitsHeat-8935.jpg\")
New York City landlords must keep temperatures above a certain threshold between Oct. 1 and May 31. (Adi Talwar\/City Limits)<\/p>\nStarting Oct 1, landlords are required to turn the heat on when the temperature drops below a certain threshold. Here\u2019s what you need to know, including changes to how the city handles 311 calls about lack of heat.<\/p>\n
New York City landlords must keep temperatures above a certain threshold between Oct. 1 and May 31. (Adi Talwar\/City Limits)<\/p>\n
That crisp in the air means New York City\u2019s \u201cheat season\u201d is starting.<\/p>\n
Each year from Oct. 1 to May 31, landlords are required to provide tenants with heat, keeping apartment temperatures above 62 degrees at night and 68 degrees during the day.<\/p>\n
But hundreds of thousands of tenants complain each year that their landlord hasn\u2019t turned on the heat, or left it too low.<\/p>\n
Last winter was the most demanding heat season on record, with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) responding to over 188,000 heat and hot water problems, according to the city\u2019s latest management report<\/a>. During a prolonged cold spell in January, New York City tenants broke records<\/a> for the most calls about \u201cno heat\u201d in a single month. Several people<\/a> passed away in the cold.<\/p>\n If your heat is not on when it should be, you can follow these steps to get help<\/a>.<\/p>\n But last year, some tenants were asking for help and not getting through, City Limits found<\/a>. The city closed out tens of thousands of complaints without conducting an inspection, due to a process where officials grouped multiple complaints from the same building together and cleared them all at once\u2014without checking if the issue in each individual apartment was resolved.<\/p>\n \u201cThey would reach one person and ask them how the heat was, and if that person had their stove going or their space heater, they might say, \u2018Yeah, I think it\u2019s fine.\u2019 And everyone else was shivering, but they just closed down the complaint with no inspection,\u201d explained Ellen Davidson, a staff attorney with Legal Aid Society\u2019s Civil Law Reform Unit.<\/p>\n \u201cSo even though there might be 100 people in the building who were freezing, if they reached the one person who was fine, that was the end of the inquiry,\u201d said Davidson.<\/p>\n After City Limits\u2019 report, Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s administration announced in its housing plan<\/a> that it would overhaul how it responds to heat complaints.\u00a0<\/p>\n Starting this heat season, HPD will attempt to inspect every apartment that files a heat and hot water complaint<\/a>, even if there are complaints of a building-wide outage.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so important,\u201d Davidson said of the change.\u00a0<\/p>\n Heat and hot water violations are considered emergency violations in the city\u2019s housing code, requiring immediate follow up.<\/p>\n Last year, the agency expressed some capacity concerns about the additional inspections needed if they were to de-duplicate heat complaints. But HPD said it has since updated its real-time inspector routing technology to provide inspectors already visiting a building with information about additional complaints at the property.<\/p>\n The Department said it would be conducting a multi-point inspection in every unit it sees, looking not just at the heat but also other health and safety issues, like smoke detectors and self-closing doors.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the past, tenants have felt really frustrated when reporting heat problems in their buildings because it felt like it wasn\u2019t getting listened to, or they would call 311 and then nothing would happen,\u201d said Sumathy Kumar, director of the housing advocacy group Housing Justice for All.<\/p>\n HPD also said that they now have 321 inspectors on staff, an 11 percent increase since 2021.<\/p>\n Landlords have expressed concerns about the high cost of home heating oil expected this winter, inflated in part due to the United States\u2019 war in Iran.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLast season was so brutal that many of these buildings just barely made it through,\u201d said New York Apartment Association CEO Kenny Burgos in a video<\/a> released Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n The group represents the owners of buildings that contain rent stabilized apartments, where they say the recently enacted rent freeze for those units<\/a> will make it harder for them to cover those costs this year. Home heating issues tend to be concentrated in neighborhoods with high concentrations of rent stabilized housing<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cNow we\u2019re heading into another winter, except this time owners are paying war prices for heat while the rent is frozen,\u201d Burgos said.<\/p>\n Complaints about lack of heat have been a persistent issue each New York City winter for years<\/a>, and enforcement can be difficult. If a building owner fails to address the problem, advocates recommend tenants document the cold conditions with the city and check in with neighbors to see if they\u2019re also having issues.<\/p>\n \u201cAlways report it. Always call 311. Talk to your neighbors. Because a heat problem is a building-wide problem, usually, and an organized building is going to help,\u201d said Kumar.<\/p>\n To reach the reporter behind this story, contact [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>. To reach the editor, contact [email\u00a0protected]<\/a><\/p>\n![\"heat](\"https:\/\/citylimits.org\/wp-content\/plugins\/trx_addons\/components\/lazy-load\/images\/placeholder.png\")
The city says it will inspect each individual heat complaint this year. (Michael Appleton\/Mayoral Photography Office)<\/p>\n