The city is investigating a Queens business believed to have made over 1,000 bogus calls to a city complaint hotline since September, claiming that homeowners were illegally converting their basements into apartments. The claims, called in from three different phones to the 311 hotline, incited a wave of inspections across Flushing, Whitestone and other northeast Queens neighborhoods that resulted in few substantive violations and many angry residents. The city is required to send inspectors after any “illegal conversion” complaint, according to Department of Buildings spokesperson Tony Sclafani, and the department is being particularly proactive after a fire in illegally-subdivided Woodside, Queens apartments last month turned deadly. However, local homeowners suspect a building industry firm has been filing the false complaints in an attempt to create clients, especially after they received letters from firms offering basement-legalization services within days of being hit with violations. [Post]

At 2285 Sedgwick Avenue, a 54-unit apartment building in the Bronx, tenants say they have been without heat or hot water ever since a fire cut off their gas service in July, and now they’re desperate for help. They’ve already called the city’s 311 hotline to report the problem to no avail, and the phone number for the building’s owner, Juan Romero of 2285 Sedgwick Realty Corp., has reportedly been disconnected. The city’s Department of Housing and Preservation says 320 complaints have been filed from the building over the last year, including problems, like the broken elevator, which happened before the fire. Residents have hung banners outside the building pleading for help, and State Senator Pedro Espada visited to show his support. HPD is now working to expedite the repair process on the gas line. [NYDN] [more]