Mom got stuck cleaning up bloody mess after brutal NYCHA cut
A Brooklyn mother was left with a mop in hand as the city was slow to clean up the bloody aftermath of a gruesome slash-and-burn attack on her building earlier this month.
Shaquana Applewhite awoke to a scene from The Shining on the morning of August 17 when blood covered four floors, the stairwells and the lobby of NYCHA’s Bushwick Houses.
A 34-year-old man was slashed on the 14th floor around 1 a.m. and ran through the building at 24 Humboldt St. in search of help, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
When Applewhite got home from work on Friday afternoon, the chaos was still there.
“I said, ‘I can’t leave this like this.’ So I took out the bleach, grabbed the mop and cleaned my floor,” Applewhite, 32, told The Post.
“I just did my best to do what I had to do for my kids,” said the mother of an 8-year-old girl and 11-year-old boy.
Applewhite bought cleaning supplies for this task, which took two hours because the blood had to be soaked to be removed. She had to throw away the clothes and shoes she was wearing.
“That’s sad… that’s just inhuman,” she said in a video posted to TikTok.
A janitor also began cleaning the blood the same day, said Dwane Simmons, a janitor at NYCHA, but was told to stop and wait for a professional team.
Simmons said Alpha Medical Waste Removal had been notified but would have to wait for police to complete the investigation.
“I’m not sure if they work weekends, so they didn’t come. Then Monday morning came and I called her again to find out what was going on,” Simmons said.
Four days later, the clean-up team finally arrived.
NYCHA referred any questions about how to handle the crime scene to the NYPD, which simply said the investigation was ongoing.
Meanwhile, the professionals did a poor job, leaving blood splatters on the walls of hallways and stairwells, The Post noted last week.
Applewhite said she wasn’t surprised by the recent scare as she had long felt unsafe in the “deplorable” living conditions at the city-run housing project.
She has been waiting to move to another apartment since April 2022, a process that has been delayed as she struggles with leaks, rats, roaches and cleaning up the crime scene.
According to the NYPD, serious crime at the Bushwick Houses is up nearly 18% this year compared to 2022. Crime has increased by 29% this year and 22 incidents have been reported so far.
Residents said there was another bloodbath in the building just a month ago.
“Two or three weeks ago, one of the elevators was covered in blood,” said Anel Gonzales, whose mother-in-law lives on Applewhite’s floor. “No information… We are not told.”
Gonzales returned to the apartment after the injured man fled through the building last week and found blood smeared on the door. She feared that one of her family members was inside.
“I had to open it with my t-shirt,” she said.
NYCHA properties, including the Bushwick Houses, are notorious for their miserable conditions, including mold, broken pipes, lead paint and heater failures, The Post reported last year, and the cost of all necessary repairs at the 274 complexes would cost more than $78 amount to billion.
