Nearly 180 new violations found at condemned Plainfield apartment complex
NEW YORK -- CBS New York has learned that the State of New Jersey found 178 new violations Friday at a Plainfield apartment complex where the city has said there are unsafe living conditions.
CBS New York has now learned contractors are working to fix 400 open violations at two buildings at Seventh and Liberty in Plainfield. Some of them are at a building that's already been condemned, but tenants at a neighboring building under the same ownership are still waiting to learn if they'll have to vacate as well.
"Based on the state's most recent inspection ... it is highly likely that a condemnation will be required," Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp said.
The mayor says the building that's already condemned has holes in the ceilings, mold-like stains and fire hazards -- problems the city discovered after a recent tenant complaint.
The state's new inspection report from Friday also describes ceilings and walls in need of repair and problems with smoke and carbon monoxide alarms in the neighboring building. The city says it will soon inspect that building to make a final call on whether to condemn it.
- Related story: Plainfield families struggling to find shelter after being forced out of condemned apartment building
"We gotta think about saving up to try to move or trying to find help to try to move," said Yesenia Leal, who lives in that neighboring building.
A spokesperson for the state initially said more than 230 violations found at the two buildings on the property in 2021 were still open. They later corrected themselves and said 222 remain open from that year, in addition to the 178 discovered Friday.
When we asked the State of New Jersey's Bureau of Housing Inspection about that, it blamed a backlog of inspections and re-inspections during the pandemic. The state didn't reinspect the buildings until Friday of last week to see if those 2021 violations were ever fixed.
Now, the state says most of them weren't fixed -- and they found 178 new violations.
"Extremely upsetting to us," the mayor said.
We wondered why, despite finding the numerous violations, the state would not reinspect the buildings for more than a year and a half. Turns out, New Jersey law lays out deadlines for how fast owners need to fix violations, but there's no law that states how quickly inspectors should check to make sure the owners actually fixed the violations.
"There ought to be a hard-set number of days by which our inspection should occur," Mapp said.
The owners of the condemned property sent us a statement Thursday saying they're working to fix the problems, but they have not responded to our questions since then.