Luxury LI apartments plagued by faulty fire alarms
Residents at a luxury apartment building in Amityville are frustrated after repeated issues with their fire alarm systems, including false alarms and a failure to go off during an actual fire. FOX 5’s Jodi Goldberg has the story.
LONG ISLAND – People living in Avalon Bay, a luxury apartment complex in Amityville on Long Island say they have been dealing with a string of disruptions caused by malfunctioning fire alarms for over a year.
One resident, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, said she is breaking her lease after enduring the repeated false alarms.
“They advertise it as a luxury apartment when it’s literally debilitating to live here,” she said.
FOX 5 first reported last month that the Amityville Fire Department had received more than 20 calls for false alarms since August of last year.
While Avalon Bay initially claimed the system was functioning as designed, a recent incident has raised new concerns. Last Friday, smoke from a heating unit filled an apartment, but the resident claims her fire alarm failed to go off.
“The Avalon has a responsibility to provide us with safe housing, and it’s not right now given the current alarm situation,” the woman breaking her lease told FOX 5. “The scary thing is people don’t come out and in my instance it was real and they had to knock on doors to get everyone out.”
She says her alarm has since been replaced but her concern is if and whether it’ll continue to work.
Amityville Mayor Dennis Siry told FOX 5 that the village fire marshal checks the system weekly and has been in contact with the building’s management to resolve the issues.
“It’s not like we can kick them out of town,” said Siry. “They’re here. We’re going to get it worked out. As long as they address it that’s what we want.”
But resident Scott Cackett says he is losing hope and is also looking for somewhere else to live.
“It seems like whatever we say or do nothing will get fixed,” he said.
Avalon Bay told FOX 5 that there have been three incidents since our last story and the system is not faulty.
