
BY BEN VERDE
A Flatbush homeowner
has been inundated with putrid
sewage in his basement
for nearly a month due to a
sewer back-up on his block —
and the city hasn’t taken any
steps to fi x it!
Eric Alexie says the basement
of his E. 21st Street
home near Woodruff Avenue
fi rst fi lled up with the rancid
water on Jan. 13, stinking up
his house and causing untold
thousands in damages to his
basement.
“My house smells like s—,”
Alexie said. “I cannot keep
anything in that basement…I
can see that there’s blackness
down there so I know that
there’s mold.”
The smell has wafted
up from the basement and
through the house, forcing
Alexie to corral his cats and
open all of his windows in
the middle of winter in an attempt
COURIER LIFE, F 26 EBRUARY 12-18, 2021
to air it out.
The homeowner says he is
now calling 311 twice a day
to have the sewer pumped,
which keeps the water level in
his basement from getting too
high. But Department of Environmental
Protection workers
have told him the pumping
is just a band-aid, and a
long-term fi x to the sewer line
— which was backed up after
a manhole on the block was
paved over — will be needed
to stop the fl ooding, and the
DEP is dragging its feet,
Alexie says.
“They’re just not doing
what needs to be done in order
to rectify it,” he said.
One main reason for the
delay is the fact that his house
sits on the corner, at the end
of the sewer line that runs
down E. 21st Street, which
makes his house the only one
on the block affected by the
fl ooding.
“Everybody else is fi ne,
all the buildings are fi ne,” he
said. “It’s only me, and they
haven’t done anything to fi x
it because it’s only one house
and it’s a private house which
means it’s only one family.”
Alexie says he is only receiving
$5,000 from his insurance
company, which he plans
on putting towards fees for
potential legal action against
the city so he can pay to have
his basement super-cleaned
and decontaminated.
Still, the cleaning can’t
even begin until the city fi xes
the sewer, because it continues
to leak sewage into his
basement.
After Brooklyn Paper
reached out for comment, a
spokesperson for the Department
of Environmental Protection
said work would begin
‘SMELLS LIKE S---!’: Eric Alexie’s Flatbush basement has been fl ooded
with stinky sewage for over three weeks. Eric Alexie
on the clogged sewer later this
week pending the weather.
“If the weather cooperates
we anticipate the repair of the
sewer at this location will begin
on Thursday, however until
that work can be completed
crews are manually pumping
the sewer line in order to
avoid any sewer backups into
homes and businesses,” said
spokesmen Edward Timbers.
FOUL PLAY!
Flatbush homeowner inundated with
sewage while city stalls on permanent fi x