647 East 14th Street Sees Brown

Make that 3055, or did they raise it $50 today?

You guys need to get a cheap TDS meter and start recording your daily readings in a log book. Check out the instructions and PPM (parts per million) chart here. While there is no way to figure out what is in that muck without lab analysis, at least you can start logging the fact management is not compliant with the EPA required clean water standards.

so far, I've been lucky this time around - my water looks okay. But on another subject, found Stuytown's under the door notice of their new website. Register for a chance to win a Mac book. I moved into my apartment February 20, 1949. BUT, my attempt to register elicited the reply that management has no record of my tenancy. STRANGE DOINGS!!!!!

The mud bath is a time honored tradition going back to the dawn of history. Cleopatra herself was known to refresh herself with mud from the Dead Sea. This therapy seems to pop up wherever water and muck appear together, and thanks to the spa technicians at Tishman Speyer, Stuyvesant Town now enjoys the honor of being the mud bath capitol New York state!

Why Take a Mud Bath?

Because it's relaxing! Mmmmmmm...being cocooned and buoyed up like this in warm, soft glop simply sucks all the stress of living in Stuy Town right out!

What's In a Mud Bath?

Native Americans used volcanic ash and warm spring water to make a primitive mud bath, but whatever Tishman Speyers technicians have up their sleeves and in our tubs is anybody's guess!

Who Shouldn't Take a Stuy Town Mud Bath?

• If you're sensitive to pseudomonas infections, petroleum and/or radioactive substances, Stuyvesant Town mud bath may not be for you.

• If you're claustrophic, you may not feel comfortable being submerged up to your neck in viscous, brown mud.

• If you're under a doctor's care for any reason (including pregnancy), check first before taking a Stuyvesant Town mud bath.

We are witnessing the appearance of the brown slime [ectoplasm] that bubbles under the streets of New York in the sinks and tubs of StuyTown. Next thing refrigerators will glow and talk when opened, and eggs will be thrown onto the kitchen floor and fried. Tenants will levitate in their beds. Is it Zuul? Gozer? The Keymaster? Could Vigo the Carpathian already be here in the person of Rob Speyer? Where are the Ghostbusters now that we really need them? Is Mike Bloomberg going to change into his alter ego, StayPuft Marshmallow Man, and save us all? Who ya gonna call?

This is the result of our landlord's refusal to routinely blow down the line - not the recent city problem. Our hot water heating system needs maintenance and plumbers simply won't stay on top of it or are discouraged from doing so. I live in the A line along with many other cold, distraught rent-stablized tenants. The pictured apartment also appears to be rent-stabilized. I have "tried to live" in spite of being unable to shower, wash dishes or take a hot bath on and off for 14 years. It happened often enough to have severely affected the quality of my life. That bathtub looks like it is full of bacteria-perhaps the H-pylori bacteria that continues to eat away at my stomach today. In addition to possible health ramifications, I have been made late and stressed so often after having to boil water, run for cabs and try to calm down before making appointments. Many times I have had to revise or simply cancel plans with friends to wait on hold, beg service to blow down the line, wait for plumbers to come witness the problem AGAIN and then do the clean up-often getting nauseated from all the clorox. Between the noise, construction, brown water, lack of heat etc. the quality of life here was and continues to be horrendous. It has taken quite a toll on my health and emotional well being. Had I found a rent- stablized apartment somewhere else 14 years ago, I believe I wouldn't be in the state I am today. I am drained. The picture above is an example of what was coming out of my kitchen and bathtub faucet ALL WEEKEND. When I called service I was told, "no one is around." My son showered at a friend's house. Like many good citizens and TS tenants, I took showers in the city's dirty COLD water. I covered my cancerous breast - and bathed it separatly in Poland Spring. After getting out of the dirty shower, I had my clothes close by as I know I will be trembling from the cold water and my cold apartment as this undesireable tenant doesn't deserve heat. I pay ONLY $1,745 a month to live on a filthy, noisy construction site. Right now I have two leaf blowers right outside my window. I can't think. Tishman makes it clear that I am an undesireable tenant and am not wanted here. Believe me I want to get out but now I cannot afford to leave. Moving here was the biggest mistake I ever made.

Nina, you have my sincere sympathy for what you are going through. I recently had surgery for cancer and am worried about the brown water and what it might be doing to the still raw incision. I wish we could get a newspaper reporter or television station interested in our plight because embarrassing Tishman Speyer is probably the only way we will get anything done. I saw a segment on NY1 yesterday about brown water on the upper west side. They said it was to do with the resevoir upstate, but what we have to put up with has nothing to do with the resevoir. It has everything to do with TS's failure to be a good landlord and do the right thing.

Re: Staffing--last time I had a plumber here I was told that they had gotten rid of half the plumbing staff (transferred them to gardening perhaps?) Now I've been told that there are only 8 people who deal with heating issues during the day (for ALL OF PCV & ST!) and 2 at night. These workers are responsible for following up on calls from tenants, as well as doing routine maintenance in buildings. If they keep firing people (or even just keep the staff at the level it's at), the maintenance work will never get done and conditions will just get worse.

I agree with Nina....conditions suck but once you're here, where do you go?

The DEP was in the neighborhood today. They were opening all the fire hydrants and letting them run into the storm sewers. I asked if this was in response to the Brown Water problems, and the worker said something about "being switched over to new water mains". So I don't know if this will have any effect, but at least the DEP is aware of the problem.

I called about the lack of heat yesteday morning. It wasn't until late afternoon that a guy came over to check the temperature and by that time I had been using a space heater for a couple of hours and had been cooking. In the future I won't bother to call TS, I'll just call 311 instead.