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Several properties on Lake Avenue in Sheepshead Bay have sat vacant since Hurricane Sandy.Trey Pentecost
"I have noticed needles in the yard and in the houses along with makeshift beds," says Missy Haggerty, a third-generation Lake Avenue resident.Trey Pentecost
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Councilman Chaim Deutsch is working with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to seal the homes.Trey Pentecost
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Sheepshead Bay is infested with zombies. But a lust for brains isn’t the problem — it’s mold, feral cats, drifters and property values.

The properties located at 4, 5 and 14a Lake Ave. in Brooklyn — a low-lying area known as the courts — have sat vacant since Hurricane Sandy slammed the neighborhood in 2012, and locals say that these “zombie homes” are a plague on the neighborhood.

“I have noticed needles in the yard and in the houses along with makeshift beds,” Missy Haggerty, a third-generation Lake Avenue resident, told Brooklyn Paper.

Personal items such as family pictures, baby clothes and moldy stuffed animals can be seen decaying in the former rentals juxtaposed with large numbers of hypodermic needles left by squatters. Neighbors told the outlet they are afraid to open their windows because of the black mold spores.

For nearly eight years, the city has been trying to contact the properties’ owner, a man named Zalman Weber. Now, Sheepshead Bay Councilman Chaim Deutsch has announced he has given up hunting for the mystery owner and will work with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to seal the homes and fix his community’s zombie problem before the end of the month.

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