648 East 96th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11236

The three-story, six-unit New Law Tenement building at 648 East 96th Street in East Flatbush, owned by Oscar Toole, has a concerning pattern of maintenance issues through 2024-2025. Most notably, as of July 2024, there were multiple unaddressed complaints regarding unsanitary conditions (pests), electrical problems (outlets and switches), and questions about ceiling conditions, though inspectors could not gain access to verify these issues. Between March and April 2024, there was a cluster of water leak problems, with some classified as emergency situations, though inspections found no violations.

The building has persistent electrical and water infrastructure issues, with multiple complaints about outlets and heavy water flow problems. Viable building violations are numerous and significant, with several open violations as of 2023-2024. These include issues in apartment 1F regarding paint conditions in bathrooms, multiple defective electrical outlets, and water leak problems.

The building currently has six active Department of Buildings violations for failure to file annual external low-pressure inspections from 2018-2023, and one violation from 2019 for not filing the 2017 boiler inspection report. Historical records show repeated rodent inspection failures in 2011 and 2015, indicating ongoing pest control challenges, and there remain open bedbug reporting violations from 2023-2024. While HPD has conducted multiple inspections throughout this period, many complaints were either not inspected or did not result in violations being issued, suggesting potential accessibility issues during inspections.