A sewage backup flooded the lobby and laundry room of a Newark apartment building on Osborne Terrace last Thursday, the latest in a string of incidents that residents say has left them wading through contaminated floodwater and breathing in an odor that reaches all the way to the sixth floor. Tenants say a maintenance worker cleaned up the mess Monday morning, but they argue that mopping up water does nothing to fix whatever keeps causing it to come back.
Hugh Vasconcelos, who moved into the building with his wife at the beginning of June, told News 12 that residents have had to walk through sewage-contaminated water just to get in and out of the building. He said cardboard was eventually placed over the flooded area, but not before people tracked the mess through in their shoes. The smell, he said, was overwhelming enough that it traveled up to his apartment, and his wife described it as unbearable and began burning candles to try to mask it.
Vasconcelos and his wife now keep their windows closed because of the odor, and he told the station he questioned whether the person sent to clean up the sewage even had the right equipment or qualifications for the job — he noted the worker's protective suit was ripped, and said he believes a professional cleaning crew should have handled it instead. He also raised concerns about storm flooding and said the building's intercom system has not worked, while the back entrance remains accessible to squatters.
Repeated Backups Since June
According to the same News 12 report, sewage backups have hit the building multiple times since June, and flies have gathered around the flooded areas in the aftermath. Residents said they have repeatedly raised these concerns with management, and have separately contacted the health department, building code officials, and a councilman's office. A building coordinator provided a docket number Sunday confirming the complaint had been received, and separately confirmed the same to Vasconcelos.
Per James Adams, director of the Newark Department of Engineering, the city's Department of Water and Sewer Utilities dispatched inspectors to investigate, and the Department of Engineering's code enforcement division sent two inspectors of its own to the building. Those inspectors found a broken pipe in the building's laundry room, according to Adams, and the Department of Engineering has assessed the overall issue as an internal plumbing problem that falls to the owner or maintenance company to fix rather than the city.
According to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the state maintains data access and reports on combined sewer overflows, a broader infrastructure issue distinct from the reported internal plumbing failure at Osborne Terrace. According to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's FFY26 (SFY27) Clean Water State Revolving Fund Intended Use Plan, combined-sewer-overflow abatement projects are among the infrastructure improvements the department supports as it works with CSO communities to reduce or eliminate overflows.
Thirty Violations and a Push for the Bad Landlord List
Adams told the station the City of Newark has issued 30 violations to the building's landlords over the past nine months, covering issues including heat, hot water, and garbage problems in addition to the plumbing failures. He said the city is aware of the challenges facing residents at the address because of property management, and that unabated violations move to court under city ordinances requiring landlords to address problems within a set time period. The city is currently in court with the landlords on four separate matters, according to Adams.
Newark has also recommended adding the building's owner to its bad landlord list, per Adams. That list exists under Executive Order MEO-26-0001, which Mayor Ras J. Baraka signed in February to create an annual public registry of property owners with repeated housing, fire safety, and code violations, according to the City of Newark. The City of Newark says its Non-Compliant Landlord List is intended to identify and publicly report property owners who demonstrate a repeated pattern of non-compliance. Under the order, a landlord qualifies for the list after three unresolved violations within 12 months at a single property, or five violations across multiple properties under common ownership, as detailed by Montclair Girl. Once listed, a full 12 months must pass before a landlord's compliance status can be re-evaluated.
What Tenants Are Legally Owed
New Jersey law sets a statutory baseline for buildings like this one. The article cites the New Jersey Hotel and Multiple Dwelling Law in discussing tenants' rights, with a link to the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs. The relevant administrative code includes a section on emergency conditions. According to NJAC 5:10-1.1 on NJ.gov, municipalities or counties must inspect multiple dwellings, hotels, and units of dwelling space during each State fiscal year. New Jersey's Department of Community Affairs says in its Truth in Renting guide that buildings with three or more rental units are subject to statewide enforcement of the Hotel and Multiple Dwelling Law.
Beyond the regulatory side, New Jersey case law — stemming from Marini v. Ireland and Berzito v. Gambino — establishes that every residential lease carries an implied warranty of habitability, according to Legal Services of New Jersey. That means tenants facing unaddressed hazards like sewage backups can legally withhold rent or pursue repair-and-deduct remedies, regardless of what their lease says. But those rights are rarely exercised in practice: a study in the Rutgers Law Review examining 40,000 Essex County eviction filings found that only 0.2% of tenants formally raised a habitability defense in court, according to Shelterforce, which also discusses the need for access to legal representation.
Newark's efforts to address landlord violations have also included court proceedings, as described above. The crackdown has also prompted discussion of aggressive enforcement efforts in Newark and Jersey City.
Back at Osborne Terrace, Vasconcelos said the building was marketed on its website as newly renovated, and he called that promotion false advertising given the conditions he and his wife have lived through. Representatives for the People's Assembly Public Safety group and Mayor Baraka have attended recent meetings at the building, and News 12 said it reached out to the property owner for comment but had not received a response as of publication. For now, Vasconcelos said, residents keep paying their rent while dealing with conditions he says make it very hard to sleep, eat, or breathe — and he insists that residents deserve safe and sanitary living conditions, not just another round of mopping.
