{"id":158860,"date":"2026-04-06T21:55:45","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T21:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/158860\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T21:55:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T21:55:45","slug":"this-is-a-nightmare-tenants-live-without-water-or-power-after-lehigh-co-apartment-building-condemned-western-lehigh-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/158860\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018This is a nightmare\u2019: Tenants live without water or power after Lehigh Co. apartment building condemned | Western Lehigh County"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALBURTIS, Pa. – It’s been a little over a year since the historic Alburtis Tavern in Lehigh County was condemned<\/a> by the Borough.<\/p>\n

Now, the apartments next to it have been condemned as well, and the Borough said the building’s owner is nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n

“I just want this to be over. This is a nightmare,” said Angel Gunther.<\/p>\n

Gunther and her partner, Jordan Szukics, are still living in the apartment building next to the old Alburtis Tavern, even though it’s had a condemned notice on it since March 20th.<\/p>\n

“I was at a doctor’s appointment. We came back, and there was a condemned sign on the building. There was no notice, nothing,” said Szukics.<\/p>\n

Since then, they’ve been living with no electricity and no water in their apartment.<\/p>\n

“We have to urinate and defecate in a bucket, and then when we’re done, we have to throw it out because there’s no way to flush a toilet,” said Szukics.<\/p>\n

Most of the other tenants in the building have moved out, but Szukics, Gunther, and their cat Abby are still working on finding a place. Borough Manager Stephen Nemeth said it’s up to the building owner, Joseph Galazin, to bring the apartments up to code, but he also told us there’s no timeline for when that might happen because he hasn’t been able to get in touch with Galazin.<\/p>\n

“He got the money, his money, what he bought the property for, and he bailed. Honestly, it’s bringing me to tears, because I don’t want to live like this anymore,” said Szukics.<\/p>\n

Szukics and Gunther said they’re working with outside organizations to find another place to live, but they’re also hoping Galazin is held accountable.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s wrongful. I think that it shouldn’t ever happen again. I think he needs to be put away, so this doesn’t happen to any more families,” said Gunther.<\/p>\n

Right now, the building is listed as being under contract<\/a> for just under $4 million. So, it’s possible a new owner could soon be coming in to repair the building, but there’s no timeline set for when that might happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALBURTIS, Pa. – It’s been a little over a year since the historic Alburtis Tavern in Lehigh County…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[71926,119,121,120,71929,71927,22110,30806,433,20118,55364,71928],"class_list":{"0":"post-158860","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-alburtis-tavern","9":"tag-allentown","10":"tag-allentown-headlines","11":"tag-allentown-news","12":"tag-building-code","13":"tag-condemned-building","14":"tag-eviction","15":"tag-housing-crisis","16":"tag-lehigh-county","17":"tag-property-owner","18":"tag-public-health-hazard","19":"tag-tenant-rights"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}