Landlord Joe Fennimore has not provided running water to his tenants at a Wawarsing property since Christmas Eve of 2019, the tenants and town supervisor said.

What You Need To Know

  • Tenants in an Ulster County rental are adapting to life without running water

  • DSS has been withholding rent payments, a tenant said, but did not require tenants to move out

  • County officials have not commented

Two tenants told Spectrum News they have adapted well to living in this stretch of studios, which is connected to another four unoccupied, dilapidated units.

They both said that since the housing crisis is quickly worsening, they would rather live here than their alternatives.Tenant Tony Mickle said, even with the water service issues, he prefers this small studio over other homes he has had. Mickle raises his 6-year-old son here. A desk by the tree with a school-issued laptop and a snack is the Zoom class station.

The two decorated the dorm-room-sized studio with a Christmas tree and holiday stickers on the clear sliding door. It is a home.

With few other options, they chose to adapt instead of move when the water service stopped.

“It’s been a little rough without running water,” Mickle said. “I go to a friend’s house to take showers. I’m bucket-flushing toilets, doing dishes, heating water.”

Mickle gets drinking water from a nearby spring and the convenience store across the street – bottles of water for drinking and buckets for flushing, stored neatly lined up outside.

The Ulster County Department of Social Services has been withholding rent payments to Fennimore because of the water issue, Mickle said, but did not require Mickle and his son to move out.

During a visit Wednesday, Mickle told Spectrum News his most recently assigned social worker has offered to help him find a new home for the short term, most likely a motel.

Mickle does not think a motel is a good environment for his son.

“You never know who you’re going to be around in one of the hotels or a shelter where you’re sharing a room with other people,” he said, “Or who’s coming to see them, or who knows.”

Spectrum News went to Fennimore’s home — a Cape Cod style house atop a hill in Highland — and knocked on his back door to inquire about his plans for the Wawarsing property.

Fennimore answered, but at the mention of the Wawarsing property, he quickly shut the door.

Wawarsing Town Supervisor Terry Houck told Spectrum News the building’s structure passed a building department inspection, which prevents the town from condemning the building.

In June 2019, the town did condemn a two-story building — also owned by Fennimore — directly next to Mickle’s apartment because it was collapsing. Now, it has wires hanging, and garbage and debris piling up.

Town officials added that they cannot force Fennimore to restore water service; county officials have more say.

Ulster County sanitary code states that dwellings must have showers and sinks connected to a water system.

“There’s no point in crying about it,” Mickle’s neighbor, Curtis Moore, said while filling up a cup of coffee in his studio next door.

After working in the local hotel industry for 25 straight years, Moore lost his job near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. He now receives unemployment benefits totaling $126 a week.

Without a car and with bus service disruptions, Moore, 59, does not have immediate plans to search for a new apartment.

In fact, he said, he is thankful.

“I get by,” he said. “I’m happy I’m doing better than some people are doing ... I got a fairly decent home. I got it warm. I got water. I have a way of cooking.”

Officials with the Ulster County Health Department did not respond to messages from Spectrum News. The county executive was not immediately available for comment.

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to the rental property as a slum.