In the civil justice system, there are lawsuits. This is one of those stories.
A former “Law & Order” star is suing her Washington Heights building, claiming they’ve turned her $1.7 million apartment into a moldy deathtrap.
S. Epatha Merkerson, who played Lt. Anita Van Buren on the TV fixture for 16 years, says her problems began almost as soon as she moved into the storied Riviera building on Riverside Drive back in 2002.
Soon after she got there, the building’s management company told her “the roof to plaintiff’s apartment was in peril of collapsing. The defendants stated that they wanted to shore up the roof and that it needed to be done from inside the apartment,” the suit says.
As a result, Merkerson had to clear out of her new apartment in the 100-year-old building for almost a year – and the repairs didn’t fix the leaks that had been plaguing the apartment.
While the building has patched up the damage done by the leaks repeatedly over the past decade, it hasn’t done anything to stop the leaks themselves, causing a mold condition.
And that was almost the last of her problems. In 2008, the building “sealed off the ventilation to plaintiff’s stove and range, without notifying plaintiff.”
Merkerson said that left her “in jeopardy of her life as the gasses could have backed up, exploded or otherwise cause serious harm to plaintiff and the apartment,” the suit says.
The fed-up Merkerson said she tried to sell the apartment for $1.2 million in 2009, but it languished on the market for two years because of the litany problems. Her suit seeks to force the building to do the necessary repair work on the building to stop the leaks, plus $2 million in damages.
She wants the cash for “loss, and diminished use of the apartment, costs of various repairs, as well as the loss of the ability to sell and rent the apartment.”
A rep for Midboro did not immediately return a call for comment.