QUEENS, NY — Tenants at a dilapidated Elmhurst apartment building say they have been without hot water since late last week, adding a fresh complaint just days before the landlord returns to Queens Civil Court over a long list of housing violations.
Residents of 41-25 Case St. say the boiler failed late Friday night and that hot water and heat were still out as of Wednesday. They also say many of the court-ordered repairs that a judge required earlier this year, including mold cleanup, broken locks and elevator problems, still have not been fixed in a lasting way.
The building is owned by A&E Realty, whose executive Margaret Brunn was ranked the city’s worst landlord by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams in 2025.
Tenants say the boiler failed and repairs never fully stuck
Tenant organizer Amber Gill said residents first lost service on Sept. 26 after the building’s boiler went down. She said tenants were repeatedly told through the week that the problem would be solved soon, but the building still lacked hot water by Wednesday.
Gill said this was not the first boiler failure at the property. She said residents went without heat and water for nearly a month last year, and that the current outage renewed fears that the building’s systems are not being maintained well enough to prevent repeat emergencies.
According to Gill, a sign was posted telling tenants the boiler was not working and would be back on ASAP, but the promise did not match what residents experienced. She said the lack of clear answers has become part of the frustration.
Court-ordered fixes have produced only partial results, residents say
A judge ordered A&E in June to fix conditions at the Case Street building, but tenants say many of those problems remain. Gill said workers have sometimes made only temporary or cosmetic repairs, including painting over mold in ways that did not pass inspection by the city Department of Housing, Preservation and Development.
She also said broken front-door locks were supposed to be repaired, but the fixes reportedly lasted only a few days. Residents say trespassers and stolen packages have remained a problem, and people who do not live in the building still loiter in the stairwell.
Gill said many tenants also have not seen repairs inside their apartments. She argued that the pattern of short-lived fixes has left residents feeling ignored even as they keep returning to court.
A&E says the outage was fixed and more work is coming
In response to questions from the Queens Daily Eagle, an A&E spokesperson said the company was aware of hot water outages during the week but said the problem had been fixed on Tuesday. The spokesperson also said hot water would be shut off again on Thursday while additional work continued at the building.
The company said it has spent nearly $5 million on repairs and general maintenance at the property. A&E also said it has cut the number of open violations at the building by 80% this year and argued that many of the remaining violations are duplicates.
The spokesperson said the building is in much better condition than when the company acquired it and described the work as part of a long repair process, not a finished job.
The Case Street building still has 265 open violations
City records on the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s online portal list 265 open violations at 41-25 Case St. That total underscores how much remains unresolved even as the landlord says progress has been made.
The building is now heading into its third court appearance before Queens Judge Shorab Ibrahim on Monday. The hearing comes after a prior order requiring A&E to substantially address the accumulated violations.
Queens Legal Services staff attorney Alex Jacobs, who represents the tenants, said some work has happened since the summer, including replacement of kitchen tiles in some apartments. But Jacobs said tenants have described the work as uneven, shoddy or temporary.
Lawyers may seek contempt if the judge finds the work lacking
More than 20 residents are listed in the lawsuit, and Jacobs said Queens Legal Services is still gathering information from each tenant about what has and has not been repaired. That review will help determine what the legal team asks the court to do next.
Depending on what residents want and what the judge sees, Jacobs said the legal team may ask the court to find the landlord in contempt. He said the central question is whether the landlord has done enough to justify more time or whether the court should conclude that A&E is stalling and producing poor-quality repairs.
Tenants say they want lasting fixes, not temporary patches, and they are waiting to see whether the next hearing leads to stronger enforcement.
Brunn and Hastings face wider scrutiny across Queens and beyond
Margaret Brunn, the landlord of the Case Street building, is also tied to another A&E property in Sunnyside that suffered a major fire on Dec. 20, 2023. That blaze injured 14 people and displaced 250 residents.
Brunn and A&E executive Donald Hastings were also named in a July class action lawsuit alleging illegal rent overcharges at five Queens rent-stabilized buildings. The Housing Rights Initiative said its investigation found rent increases without required improvements, an allegation A&E has denied.
According to the public advocate’s office, Brunn and Hastings manage 60 buildings citywide with more than 8,600 combined HPD violations in 2025. For tenants at Case Street, those numbers frame a dispute that is still far from over.
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