The owner of a Brooklyn nursing home is refusing to turn on the air conditioning for the handful of seniors who live there — a cold-hearted attempt to boot them and sell the building, lawyers for the residents said.
Seniors at the Prospect Park Residence sweated through a late-May heat wave, although a court last year ordered owner Haya Deitsch to keep their rooms cool, residents said.
“For whatever reason now, they decide they do not want to turn on the air conditioning in the residents’ rooms,” Jason Johnson, a lawyer for one of the residents, told Justice Wayne Saitta at a June 8 hearing.
Deitsch has been trying to shutter the building since April 2014, but the remaining residents — seven of 130 — have been battling in Brooklyn Supreme Court to remain. The massive Park Slope building could fetch $76.5 million, according to court papers.
The nursing home’s lawyer argued that the facility only has to maintain a “comfortable temperature” and can seek “temporary relocation” for the residents once temperatures hit 85 degrees.
“There is no requirement. No requirement in law for air conditioning,” lawyer Joel Drucker told the judge.
Last August, Deitsch was ordered to restore certain services, including the AC. But Drucker contends the court order pertained only to cooling off the hallways.