Tenants in East Harlem public housing who turned to NY1 for help said water damage made their apartments smell so bad that they had to sleep with the windows open during the recent cold weather. Manhattan Borough reporter Rebecca Spitz filed the following report.

One does not have to look very hard to find water damage in Daisy Wells' East Harlem apartment. It is in her bathroom, her bedroom, her kitchen and even her hall closet.

She said it has made her home unliveable, and the New York City Housing Authority, which runs her development on upper Madison Avenue, has not helped her.

"The water's making me sick. The odor and all the residue from the water, they say it was a waste pipe that's broken in the wall," said Wells.

The "they" she's talking about is the New York City Housing Authority which runs her .

For almost two months, NYCHA has ignored tenants' complaints, accoring to Wells and her upstairs neighbor, Mary Vanderhorst.

"I would say in October or whatever when we started smelling the dampness, but the real problem started in December when the water started flowing like an ocean," said Vanderhorst.

Both women said there are leaks in all the apartments on the "J" line from the 10th floor down.

They said the building manager gave them the runaround, promising a plumber would come last week, but by Tuesday they had not seen one.

Wells said she made all kinds of modifications to her apartment because of NYCHA's failure to act.

"I put large plastic bags over the clothing, and I put cardboard and paper down and I put buckets up to catch the water," said Wells.

The same thing happened with Vanderhorst two floors up, who no longer has a rug pad in the bedroom.

"I took it up because it was damp and wet. All of this is newspaper," said Vanderhorst.

The water was also in her bedroom wall and closet.

Looking for the leaky pipe, building maintainence punched a hole in Vanderhorst's bathroom wall about three weeks ago. By Tuesday, it was covered with plywood while Vanderhorst waited for someone to do something.

In a statement, NYCHA officials said they were aware of the leaks but argued the condition was first reported only around Christmas. A spokesperson told NY1 inspectors were coming out to take a look.

As they were leaving, the NY1 crew ran into the inspectors. Off-camera, the inspectors told NY1 that plumbers would be sent out.

NY1 checked back with tenants, who said the inspectors did arrive and promised that at least some of the work will be finished by the end of the week.