Many New Yorkers were busy plugging leaks during April’s record-breaking rain storm, but for Lydia Vega and her family, the downpour only made a bad situation worse.

“It was like it was raining in the apartment,” said Denise Rivera, 21, who lives with her mother in the problem-plagued Hunts Point I complex on Coster Street in the Bronx.

Leaks are nothing new for Vega, who pointed to three spots where rainwater routinely pours from her ceiling. For months, the sharp odor of mold from a four-foot-wide leak above her kitchen stove has permeated her apartment, overpowering the smell of dinner cooking. More »