The front door and hallway of 229 Exchange St, which has been cited, and abated, two times in four years for lead paint hazards.
The city’s Health Department has found lead paint hazards at two neighboring Exchange Street properties that are home to children with elevated blood lead levels.
One of those properties was cited, and released, by the city four years ago for presenting lead paint hazards to a similarly lead-burdened child.
The property manager for the twice-cited property said he has already cleared a lead abatement plan with the city. He said contractors have already completed the city-ordered lead paint abatement work in the apartment, and he is just waiting for the city’s follow-up inspection.
On July 17, the city’s Health Department sent a lead soil abatement order to landlord Menachem Gurevitch of Mandy Management — one of the largest low-income property management outfits in town — to clean up dangerously high lead-in-soil levels outside of the first-floor apartment of 229 Exchange St. The lead soil order came nearly one month after the city sent Gurevitch a June 19 lead paint abatement order for the same first-floor apartment at the two-family Fair Haven home.
The city also sent a July 17 lead paint abatement order to landlord Shams Nazari for dangerously high lead-in-paint levels on the third floor of 221 Exchange St., a two-family home just two doors down from Gurevitch’s property.
The two lead paint abatement orders both reference one or more children at the respective properties who have “elevated” blood lead levels.
Both city and federal law follow the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in identifying any child blood lead level above 5 micrograms per deciliter (mg/dL) as “abnormal,” or dangerously high and presenting an undue risk for the development of long-term mental and behavioral disabilities.
229 Exchange St.
The June 19 for the first-floor, three-bedroom apartment of 229 Exchange St. indicates that city lead inspector Andrew Carnevale visited the property on June 19 and found high lead paint levels in the living room’s window sill and the front common hallway’s door jamb, door stop, and stair tread nose. While the order does not specify the exact lead paint levels of these individual components, it does say that the levels are higher than 1.0 milligrams per square centimeter, which is the threshold the city uses to describe “toxic” lead paint.
A woman who lives in first-floor apartment with her aunt, husband, and seven young children said she moved into the apartment three months ago and found out just one month ago that two of her kids have elevated blood lead levels.
She said her 1‑year-old child has a blood lead level of 19 mg/dL and her 3‑year-old child has a blood lead level of 9 mg/dL.
The tenant declined to be identified by name or picture. As she spoke with this reporter, she sat on a couch by the living room’s window, her head in her hands. Her seven children were all shirtless in the summer heat, lying asleep or resting on the living room floor or couch.
Yudi Gurevitch, a property manager with Mandy Management, said the landlord has already cleared the scope of work with the city, and that the abatement work was completed yesterday. He said the landlord is currently working with the city to develop a lead soil abatement plan, and will take care of that abatement as soon as the scope of work is defined.
The tenant confirmed on Tuesday that contractors had come by on Monday to abate the window sill and front door. When this reporter visited the property on Tuesday morning, the front door had indeed been replaced and the window sill repainted or encapsulated.
The city requires landlords to submit a lead paint abatement plan within five days of receiving a lead paint abatement order. They must begin abatement work within seven days of receiving the order, and complete abatement work within 30 days of receiving the order.
The July 17 lead soil abatement order for 229 Exchange also stems from Carnevale’s June 19 inspection. The order references a lead-in-soil level of 1160 parts per million (ppm) in the front yard. The city threshold for lead-poisoned soil is 440 ppm.
The city requires landlords to begin lead soil abatement within 45 days of receiving a lead soil abatement order.
The June 19 lead paint abatement order was not the first time the city has found lead paint hazards in the first-floor apartment of 229 Exchange.
Back on Aug. 29, 2014, the city’s Health Department sent a lead paint abatement order to Gurevitch for dozens of lead paint hazards throughout the first-floor apartment at 229 Exchange. City lead inspector Jomika Bogan found lead paint hazards back in Aug. 2014 in the apartment’s kitchen, bedrooms, living room, and bathroom.
The 2014 order indicated that one or more children with blood lead levels above 15 mg/dL then lived at the property.
Gurevitch acted on the lead paint abatement order soon after receiving it and, on Sep. 30, 2014, the city signed off on Gurevitch’s work and released him from the initial lead paint abatement order.
That 2014 order, however, which was acted on by the landlord and signed off on by the city, did not include the four areas of the apartment that would be cited by the city in its June 19, 2018 abatement order nearly four years later.
221 Exchange St.
The city’s Health Department also sent a lead paint abatement order on July 17 to Shams Nazari for a number of lead paint hazards in the third-floor apartment of 221 Exchange St.
The order indicates that a July 16 inspection by Carnevale found 24.3 milligrams of lead per square centimeter of paint in the front stairs stair stringer. The order also reports lead paint levels of 33 in the front landing’s baseboard, 9.7 in the first-floor common hallway’s door casing, and 3.0 in the exterior façade’s brick.
Previous coverage:
• Judge Threatens To Find City In Contempt
• Lead $ Search Advances
• 3 Landlords Hit With New Lead Orders
• Another Judge Rips City On Lead
• Judge To City: Get Moving On Lead
• Health Department Seeks Another $4.1M For Lead Abatement
• City-OK’d Lead Fixes Fail Independent Inspection
• Judge: City Dragged Feet On Lead
• 2nd Kid Poisoned After City Ordered Repairs
• Judge: City Must Pay
• City Sued Over Handling Of Lead Poisonings
• City’s Lead Inspection Goes On Trial
• Eviction Withdrawn On Technicality
• 2nd Child Poisoned; Where’s The City?
• Carpenter With Poisoned Kid Tries A Fix
• High Lead Levels Stall Eviction
• 460 Kids Poisoned By Lead In 2 Years
• Bid-Rigging Claimed In Lead Cleanup
• Judge Orders Total Lead Paint Clean-Up
• Legal Aid Takes City To Task On Lead