Metro

Manhattan stinks! Borough is city’s worst smelling

It’s Manhattan — by a nose!

The borough’s residents have the most sensitive schnozes, per capita, in the Big Apple.

They filed 13,054 odor complaints over the past four years, a Post analysis of 311 data found, a rate of about eight gripes per 1,000 residents.

One Washington Heights building alone lodged a staggering 267 odor complaints — the most in the city.

Most of the grievances at 68 Thayer St. were logged as “chemical vapors/gases/odors,” and at least one for “sewage odor” — but the city said the complaints have all come from a “single occupant” and that inspectors have yet to detect odors.

Neighbors said they had no idea who was raising the stink. “We don’t have any problems,” insisted one longtime resident.

At 541 West 142nd St. — the fourth smelliest building citywide — gas and mold are common scents, residents said.

“And there’s the occasional pot odor— but I have no complaints about that,” joked resident Kayla Tyree.

One tenant showed The Post the deplorable conditions he says continue to be the cause of the smell hell, which has tallied 115 complaints over the past four years.

“There’s something wrong with the stove, the gas leaks,” said Milo Efrainvega as he manhandled the gas-pipe valve connecting to the filthy stove inside his dingy first-floor pad. “Other tenants say to me, ‘Yo, I sniff gas!’”

Indoor odor complaints are tackled by the Department of Health while the Department of Environmental Protection addresses outdoor smells. Fines can start at $200 and add up until the matter is resolved.

The city’s 43,964 odor complaints in the last four years ran the olfactory gamut — from diesel fumes and chemical odors to animal odors, the latter accounting for the vast majority of complaints at the third stinkiest and ninth stinkiest buildings, 657 Leverett Ave. in Staten Island and 1309 5th Ave. in East Harlem, respectively.

1309 5th Ave. is the 9th stinkiest building in the city.J.C.Rice

“They had three dogs and six cats in a one-bedroom apartment,” recalled Loretta Smith, a resident of the Leverett Ave. building who lived above the pungent pad and complained dozens of times to 311. “It was a strong smell of urine — it almost knocked you out,” she recalled, adding that the couple moved out last year.

“I can’t believe somebody was sitting in that crap,” she said.

Sometimes, it’s the human inhabitants who stink.

One West Village resident recalled her ex-roommate desperately calling 311 to rat out a particularly stinky neighbor — a man with a fondness for dressing like a shirtless cowboy — at her West 14th Street building.

“The smell was unworldly,” the woman recalled.

Restaurant smells are another unappetizing issue .

“It just grinds you down,” said one Tribeca resident who said he’s called 311 about the aromas wafting into his loft from Salaam Bombay, an Indian eatery on Greenwich Street. “That’s the kind of thing you want to smell when you want to smell it — like when you’re eating in the restaurant.”

And every neighborhood flunks the smell test.

At tony 785 Park Ave., a compliant about “musty/stale” water was logged in July 2011; at 115 Central Park West, indoor sewage was an issue in October 2012, and at ritzy 54 Sutton Pl., a “sewer odor” generated a complaint last month.

On 11th Street in Park Slope — one block over from Mayor de Blasio’s home — two separate addresses have logged multiple complaints over the years for “animal odors” and “pigeon odor,” respectively.

Hizzoner’s borough boasted the smelliest zip code — 11220 — which netted 856 complaints since 2010.

And it’s no wonder. The fetid zip, which includes Sunset Park and Bay Ridge, is home to the seventh smelliest address in the city — the Owl’s Head wastewater treatment plant.

“It’s basically s—! You are smelling feces!” bellowed resident Allen Bortnick, 83, who said he’s gotten his nose out of joint for years begging the city to stanch the stench. A DEP spokesman said the city has poured in $40 million to upgrade the odor control systems at the facility.

Bortnick isn’t convinced.

“When the wind blows, the odor permeates. It makes life miserable here.”