By Colin Mixson, Leonard Greene, Ellen Moynihan
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — An abandoned Brooklyn house where a squatter died Tuesday in a fast-moving fire has been a neighborhood nuisance for years, residents said.
However, after years of frustration for the block’s residents, the city is now finally moving to end the problem — ordering that the out-of-control building be demolished.
The stubborn blaze that broke out just after 8 a.m. on the second floor of a two-story house on 67th St. near 12th Ave. in Dyker Heights was the fifth fire to engulf the property in just two years, Fire Department officials said.
Firefighters, hindered by cinder blocks sealing off windows and doors, discovered the woman, believed to be in her 40s, dead in an alleyway behind the building. She still has not been publicly identified.
“I’m not sure which lady it is, because there’s a lot of people who look like they live there,” said Sal Ahmad, 50, who has lived on the street for 15 years.
“They boarded up the windows, they cinder-blocked everything they could,” he said. “But they keep busting holes, probably through the back. They’ll come in, clean everything out and then a few weeks later, the driveway’s back to being filled with rubbish. Whatever they collect, they bring it there, to make their tents. Shopping carts galore over there.”
Last summer, surveillance video caught one of the alleged squatters destroying a neighbor’s security camera with a piece of plywood.
A few months later, another neighbor caught the unwelcome visitors stealing water from her property with a hose that snaked through a hole in the fence.
One inventive squatter was so desperate for water that he stretched a line of hoses past six properties to the end of the block and around the corner to connect to a tap on 12th Ave., the neighbors said.
Then, they stole buckets and trash containers from nearby houses to fill with the stolen water, the neighbors said.
The squatters did the same with electricity, using extension cords to dangerously tap into neighbors’ power supplies, locals said.
One neighbor said he was surprised to see how bright the place was when it was supposed to have been abandoned.
“Before the house went up in flames last year, he had the lights on,” Ahmad said of one of the squatters. “Like, he managed to get the lights turned on somehow. A few weeks later, the fire broke out. He turned the electricity on. How he got the electricity turned on for the whole house, nobody knows, but a few months later it went up in flames.”
Fire officials were still investigating the cause of Tuesday’s fire.
Nearly 140 members of the FDNY responded to the blaze, which was brought under control about two hours later, officials said. Three firefighters suffered minor injuries knocking down the flames.
Jay Zhu, 43, who also lives on the block, said he wishes the city would just condemn the building and knock it down already.
“We feel bad that a person died, absolutely,” he said. “But I’d rather it burn down and not destroy the whole neighborhood.”
And, in fact, it appears that Zhu and other neighbors will finally get their wish. Department of Buildings engineers on scene issued orders to the property owner to immediately install a construction fence around the perimeter to reseal the building. The engineers also issued an emergency order to the property owner to hire an engineer and fully demolish the building.
According to neighbors, the house was abandoned by its owner about five years ago, and squatters moved in about two years after that.
The building’s listed owner did not respond to requests for comment.
Zhu said the fires don’t even surprise him anymore.
“I see the fire truck, I’m not even anxious anymore,” he said. “I know what happened already. Anybody else, they see a fire truck, they’re like, ‘What happened?’ For us here, it’s familiar.”
Frustrated by the whole saga, he said he wants to move to Florida — though when he spoke he had not yet heard that the city has ordered the building demolished.
“The city doesn’t care about this,” Zhu lamented. “All the neighbors give notice and they completely ignore this. We pay a crazy amount of realty tax. What is it paying for?”
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