Landlord on Dangerous Lot: "I can't handle it"

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Neighbor Michele Israel, of East 7th between Cortelyou and Ditmas, emails about her travails on an incredibly frustrating subject for many neighbors: A filthy, dangerous empty lot next door.

The lot at 487-491 Ocean Parkway is used as a dump, and -- as Israel and her neighbors, who can see it from the back windows of their condo note -- is home to "a variety of animals that roam back there, vermin" and a dying tree, whose large branches have started to fall off.

Neighbors have called 311, and were told 311 could address it as long as the problems were visible from the street. Violations issued by the city remain open and unresolved. And they've called the owner, who has occasionally sent crews to do some cleaning.

The Department of Buildings, meanwhile, indicates that it has issued nearly $150,000 in violations for dangerous conditions at the site and the owner's failure to remedy them. Yet 11 of 17 violations remain unresolved, many of them dating back to demolition work in 2008.

The owners are listed variously as a company called Presco, Jerome Greenbaum, and Yaakov Waks (or Wax), and I was able to reach Wax on the phone this morning.

"I’ve owned if for four years, and I’ve cleaned it a million billion times," he said. "There's a limit to how much I can do."

Wax said he sends a crew roughly every three weeks to clean it up. (Israel says she hasn't seen any sign of cleaning in months.)

"As it is, I'm underwater on the company," he said. "It's just I can't handle it. I don't know what to do. I'm going to clean it up."

"It's not my garbage, that's for sure," he said.

Not sure that's going to give much comfort to frustrated neighbors. What can we do to get the city to act?