Who can they call?

Inwood is far from the only community on Long Island that has problems with illegal housing and absentee landlords, but it is one of the few whose neighborhood leaders are working to address those issues.

Inwood Community Group founder Greg Nunn said that the organization would discuss the issues at a private meeting sometime next week. “All you have to do is look at the figures and notice the increase in people and see that something is wrong,” Nunn said. “It doesn’t take a genius to look at the census and ask, ‘Where are all these people living?’”

The 2010 census showed that the population in Inwood is currently 9,792, compared with 9,325 in 2000 and 7,767 in 1990 — a 26 percent increase in 20 years.

According to Nunn, many landlords are getting away with paying taxes on one-family homes when there are actually three or four families living in them, because the Town is not checking. “We’re the poorest [community] so we get the poorest service,” he said. “I tend to laugh when they say nobody’s reported anything. Look at the census figures; do we have to report it? You can get a bill though Congress before you can get action [at] the town and county level.”

When some landlords fail to take an active interest in the condition of their properties — or the people who live in them — the effects can spread beyond the neighborhood to the larger community. Inwood resident Felipe Plaza says he has lived on Lawrence Avenue for a year and rarely sees his landlord, even though his front door is about to fall off its hinges and there are many other problems that need fixing.

“The property is not properly maintained and the landlord needs to repair the house,” Plaza said. “If I’m living with that, I know there are people out there who are living with much worse.”

He explained that while he hasn’t spent his own money on repairs, some of his roommates have, on paint, spackle and a new kitchen floor. “If we had to wait for the landlord to come and fix something, it would take forever,” he said. “If you want us to live here, you have to make it look nice. Landlords have to step up.”

A Wanser Avenue resident, a single mother of three who declined to be identified lest she jeopardize her housing situation, said she hasn’t seen her landlord more than a few times since she moved into her apartment almost a year ago. As the Herald asked questions, Plaza interpreted for the woman, who speaks Spanish.

“The landlord rarely comes to the apartment,” she said. “He has someone who works for him that comes to pick up the rent money.”

She added that it has been an ongoing struggle for her to get things repaired. The tile floor in her kitchen is coming apart and her children, ages 6, 3 and 16 months, are in danger of ingesting pieces of tile or cutting themselves. “When I mop, pieces of the floor come up and the baby can crawl and pick up the little pieces,” she said.

Each time something needs to be repaired, she said, she calls the landlord and asks him to fix it but he refuses, saying that any repairs are her responsibility.

When a sharp piece of metal was sticking up from the bathroom heater, she called him and threatened to get her social worker involved unless he repaired it. The landlord sent the man who works for him right away to fix the problem, she said.

Charles Kovit, the Town of Hempstead’s senior deputy town attorney, explained that repairs and maintenance are a private matter between a landlord and tenant and should be addressed in the lease. He added that the town gets involved only if there are violations of zoning or building codes.

Kovit said that the town deals with illegal-occupancy complaints every year, and has a bureau of zoning inspectors to address the complaints. In 2009, he said, there were 1,994 complaints, in 2010 there were 2,179, and so far this year there have been 585. “This is not an issue peculiar to the Town of Hempstead,” he said. “It happens across the country.”

Kovit added that Hempstead came up with a new zoning enforcement tool several years ago called the rebuttable presumption ordinance, which allows zoning inspectors to bring a homeowner to court without having to enter the house. “If there are signs that more than one family lives in a house, like two electric meters or separate entrances, we’ll call that person to court to explain themselves,” he said. “It provides us with an important tool to get compliance.”

Nunn said he does not want to see another incident like the February 2009 Lawrence Avenue fire in Inwood that killed four people who couldn’t escape by way of the building’s only stairwell. “I just want Inwood residents to live in legal and safe housing,” he said. “And I hope someone … does something before another tragedy happens.”

Kovit said that when there is a complaint about a possible illegal occupancy, the town’s building inspector is sent to investigate. “We’re not going to go roving through the town,” he said. “We don’t have the resources or the manpower to do that. I encourage anyone to call the Building Department to complain, and we will keep their name confidential. We’ll address the violation and will do as best we can on behalf of neighbors who want to see a one-family environment.”