717 East 5th Street, Manhattan, NY 10009

The five-story, 22-unit tenement building at 717 East 5th Street in the East Village, built in 1920 and currently owned by Selim Vukovic, has a documented history of recurring issues primarily related to building systems and maintenance. Most recently, in December 2023 and again in December 2024, there were complaints about heating and hot water problems affecting the entire building.

The building experienced significant water-related issues, with violations for slow water leaks noted in 2022-2023, and multiple instances of heat and hot water complaints, particularly during a cluster of incidents in January 2019. More recent violations from 2024 include a Class C violation regarding defective self-closing doors leading to the basement and issues with the fire escape requiring repainting. The building has undergone several rodent inspections between 2022 and 2025, with the most recent compliance inspection in early 2025 showing a failure for unspecified reasons, while earlier inspections generally reported passing results.

Notable interior conditions in Apartment 5A were documented during a September 2023 inspection, including issues with ceiling plaster and water leaks, for which violations were issued and subsequently certified as corrected by late 2023. Despite these various issues, the building's record shows consistent filing of bedbug reports indicating no infestations from 2019 through 2025, suggesting effective monitoring and management of this particular concern. The property's maintenance record reveals a pattern of response to emergency and non-emergency conditions, with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) frequently conducting inspections, though access issues have occasionally prevented complete evaluations.