Red Hook mother fears for family’s health as she deals with broken water pipe for a month

Juanita Murray Corbett lives on the sixth floor at 37 Center Mall with her 9-year-old daughter, and she's expecting a baby boy next month. Instead of preparing her home for her new baby, she has to spend her days cleaning out water.

News 12 Staff

Jan 14, 2023, 6:39 PM

Updated 635 days ago

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A Red Hook woman who is eight months pregnant says she has been living with a broken pipe in her apartment for a month and has had trouble getting help from the city.
Juanita Murray Corbett lives on the sixth floor at 37 Center Mall with her 9-year-old daughter, and she's expecting a baby boy next month. Instead of preparing her home for her new baby, she has to spend her days cleaning out water.
Corbett says on Dec. 14, water started leaking out of the wall separating her bedroom and the bathroom.
Since then, about every hour she has to bend down and clean up the water, which has damaged her clothes, rugs and her bed. It's gotten so bad she says she's been sleeping on the couch.
Her daughter's room is also flooded.
The apartment already had some mold, and this new water is making it worse.
Corbett says her and her daughter started wearing masks in the house because she fears for their health — especially since her daughter already developed asthma since moving into that apartment a few years ago.
She says she's reached out to NYCHA several times in the last month to ask them to transfer her to another apartment.
NYCHA inspectors came to assess the damage this week and told News 12 in a statement that they plan to continue working with the family to ensure a safe and habitable household but didn't specify how they plan to help.
Corbett says she can’t wait much longer to get help with barely a month until her due date.
She says she's asked to be transferred to another apartment for the time being, but NYCHA hasn’t told her if and when that might happen.