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Couple Claims City Housed Them In Bedbug-Infested UWS Nightmare Hotel
By
Ben Yakas
Published Feb 27, 2016
Modified Feb 27, 2016
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Feb 27, 2016
Modified Feb 27, 2016
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A couple who were relocated by the city after their Brooklyn apartment burned down in a fire say they have been stuck in a bedbug-infested Upper West Side hotel. "I have bedbug bites all over my skin and management is doing nothing," Cherise Robinson told PIX11.
Hairdresser Robinson, and her mechanic husband, have been living at the Manhattan Hotel at 308 West 94th Street, courtesy of the Department of Housing, ever since they lost their East Flatbush apartment in a fire in November of 2014. The city has paid $1,700 a month for one room with bath for the couple for the past 15 months.
"I have rats, roaches and now bedbugs," Robinson said, adding that neither the city nor hotel management have responded to her complaints. "I packed up all my stuff, but still no one came."
Robinson and her husband would rather move back to East Flatbush, but no one from the city is helping them find a place. "Mayor de Blasio's approach to homelessness falls way short of the promise," Aaron Biller, President of the Neighborhood in the 90s, Inc., told PIX11. He estimated that putting the couple up for so long has cost taxpayers around $25K: "There has to be a better way, because this is very wasteful of taxpayers dollars."
Last month, a couple recorded a horrifying video of bedbugs running amok at the Astor on the Park hotel, within walking distance of the Manhattan Hotel.
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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