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Residents of a Highbridge apartment building say they are exhausted and disgusted after raw sewage has been backing up into their homes for months—creating unsafe and unsanitary living conditions they say management has failed to fix.
Tenants at the 165th Street apartment complex tell News 12 the problem dates back to June and has only gotten worse.
“I’m stepping all over this,” said Jose Morales, standing inside his wife's bathroom as sewage covered the floor. Morales says sewage water regularly shoots out of the toilet and fills his bathtub with dirty water.
“If I let it go—look, it’s coming up. I can’t stop it, I can’t stop it,” he said.
Morales says building management told him the pipes were corroded over the summer, but residents say the issue keeps happening, with the most recent backup over the weekend.
“You have to be checking the bathroom every little while,” said Morales' wife, Milagros Torres. “Because at night you get flooding with feces and urine and everything.”
Torres, 66, does not live with her husband and says help is not always available when emergencies happen. The situation is especially dangerous because she relies on a ventilator to breathe.
“The smell gets really bad for me,” she said.
Confined to her bed, Torres says keeping up with the sewage backups on her own is nearly impossible.
“I have to call for help,” Torres said. “Please help—I can’t live like this. It’s very depressing.”
Torres says she has asked management to move her to an apartment better suited for someone with disabilities, but says she is currently on a long waiting list.
News 12 reached out to Pinnacle Management, the company that manages the building, but the group was not immediately available to comment.


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