After nearly two months with no gas in her home due to a prolonged gas leak, Judy Yu thanked the Great Neck Board of Trustees Tuesday night for their efforts in helping her get the gas turned on Friday.
“All the children are so happy to take a bath,” Yu told the board. “So today I’m coming to… thank [you] for all your help.”
Yu moved into her rental home with her two children in August and said that within the first day of living there, she smelled gas. When she first brought the issue up to her landlord, Yosef Shemtov, Yu said he disregarded the issue and didn’t look into it.
In October, after two months of living with her windows opened and needing to shut them due to the colder weather, the smell was still persistent and Yu took the issue into her own hands.
She called National Grid who upon inspecting her home immediately turned off her gas due to a leak.
But it was not immediately fixed, with her landlord a week later turning it back on without conducting a pressure test of the gas lines, she said.
“I feel unsafe,” Yu said.
Yu’s gas was turned off again on Nov. 3 by National Grid, leaving her again with no gas and no hot water as the weather got colder. Multiple pressure tests were then conducted, all of them failing due to a persisting leak in the gas pipes.
Yu, with the help of fellow resident David Zielenziger, began contacting anyone who could help, including the Red Cross.
“But no one can help me,” Yu said.
But a solution was finally made achievable after Yu spoke at the last Great Neck Board of Trustees meeting where she explained her issue and the village stepped in to help.
“Then things [were] changing,” Yu said.
The village assisted in getting the pipes fixed in Yu’s home and connecting her back to the gas lines. A pressure test finally passed on Thursday, bringing heat back into her home by Friday.
But then a water leak flooded her basement Friday evening, delaying the resolutions to her problems until Monday.
While Yu’s months-long gas leak has found resolution, Zielenziger told the board that the village needs to step in and increase its oversight of rental units by regularly inspecting them.
“If we have enough staff and personnel, that perhaps many of these rental units should be inspected as Shemtov now has a summons because a rear part of that cottage was illegally converted,” Zielenziger told the board. “I mean how many other things are there?”
In other news, the Great Neck Board of Trustees approved a new stop sign at the intersection of William Penn and Old Pond Road.
Village Clerk-Treasurer Abraham Cohan said the village had received letters regarding speeding at the William Penn and Old Pond Road intersection, with no stop signs currently present.
Two stop signs will now be added to the intersection to create a three-way stop.
The village also approved a change in the parking restrictions on the east side of Church Street to permit two-hour parking from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. It previously had no parking restrictions.
The Great Neck Board of Trustees will convene again on Dec. 19.
