Does my landlord have to provide a carbon monoxide detector in New York?

Yes, where the building has a carbon monoxide source. Amanda's Law, effective February 22, 2010, requires operable carbon monoxide detectors in residential dwellings that contain appliances, devices, or systems that may emit carbon monoxide or that have an attached garage. Within New York City, § 908.7 of the Building Code governs installation in dwelling units and Administrative Code Article 312 requires owners to replace alarms at the end of the manufacturer's suggested useful life.

What if there was a detector but it was old or had no battery?

That is frequently the case rather than a defense to it. Administrative Code Article 312 requires owners to replace carbon monoxide alarms once the manufacturer's suggested useful life has elapsed, and new alarms must comply with UL 2034 and sound an audible end-of-life notification. An expired unit, a device removed during a renovation and never reinstalled, or an alarm that never sounded because it was past its life is a failure of an ongoing duty.

I felt fine after the exposure and now I have memory problems. Is that related?

It can be. Delayed neurological sequelae are a recognized feature of carbon monoxide poisoning, appearing days to weeks after an exposure that seemed resolved, and presenting as memory impairment, difficulty concentrating, personality change, movement problems, or depression. Get evaluated and ask about neuropsychological testing. An undocumented gap between the exposure and the symptoms is the first thing an insurer will use.

What evidence proves a carbon monoxide claim?

Two record sets. On the alarm side: purchase and installation dates, the manufacturer's stated useful life, inspection certificates, and renovation work orders. On the equipment side: boiler and heating service invoices, chimney and flue inspection reports, prior tenant complaints about headaches or odors, HPD heat complaints, Department of Buildings violations, and utility response records. A vendor's written repair recommendation the owner declined to fund is the strongest single document in this category.

Can a hotel guest or a restaurant customer bring a carbon monoxide claim?

Yes. New York's requirement extends to buildings containing restaurants and to commercial buildings that have carbon monoxide sources or attached garages, and hotel and single room occupancy operators owe duties to guests who have no control over the mechanical systems. Pool heaters, rooftop boilers, kitchen equipment with failed makeup air, and generators are the recurring sources in those settings.

How long do I have to file a carbon monoxide claim in New York?

Three years from the date of injury under CPLR § 214, and two years from the date of death for a wrongful death claim under EPTL § 5-4.1. If the building is a New York City Housing Authority development or another public entity, a notice of claim is required within 90 days and the action must be commenced within one year and 90 days. A child's claim is tolled during infancy under CPLR § 208.

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Is a Landlord Liable for Carbon Monoxide Poisoning in a New York Apartment?

In most cases yes, because two separate duties failed and both are documented.

The first is the alarm. New York requires carbon monoxide alarms in residential buildings, and building owners have to replace them when the manufacturer's stated useful life runs out.

The second is the equipment. A boiler, furnace, water heater, or flue that vents combustion gas into living space is a maintenance failure with a service history behind it.

New York apartment carbon monoxide poisoning claim landlord liability

Carbon monoxide has no color, no odor, and no taste. People do not wake up. That is what the statutes were written to prevent, and it is why a poisoning is almost never a case about what the tenant should have noticed.

Across New York State roughly 200 people are hospitalized and more than 1,800 visit an emergency department each year for accidental carbon monoxide poisoning.

Call (888) 713-6653 for a free review of your carbon monoxide claim. There is no fee unless we win.

New York Carbon Monoxide Claims at a Glance

Amanda's Law took effect February 22, 2010 and set the statewide residential requirement
NYC Building Code 908.7 governs where alarms must be installed in dwelling units
Admin Code Article 312 requires replacement at the end of the manufacturer's useful life
New CO alarms must comply with UL 2034 and sound an end-of-life notification
The old Housing Maintenance Code sections cited online were repealed effective May 1, 2019
Boiler, flue, and water heater service records are the core liability evidence
Delayed neurological effects can appear weeks after an exposure that looked resolved

Which Carbon Monoxide Alarm Rules Apply to Your Building

The requirement is not identical everywhere, and the answer depends on what kind of building it is and whether the structure has a carbon monoxide source in it. Working out which category applies is the first step in evaluating a claim.

Apartment Buildings

Multiple dwellings with a carbon monoxide source in or attached to the structure, meaning a fuel-burning appliance, a boiler, a furnace, a water heater, a fireplace, or an attached garage. Owners must provide and install approved and operational alarms in each dwelling unit, positioned in the vicinity of sleeping areas as the Building Code requires, and must replace them when the manufacturer's suggested useful life has elapsed. Common areas and mechanical rooms serving residential buildings carry their own detection requirements.

One- and Two-Family Rentals

Covered by the statewide requirement where the dwelling has appliances, devices, or systems that may emit carbon monoxide, or has an attached garage. A landlord renting a house or a two-family building is an owner for these purposes, and the duty to install and replace runs the same way it does in a larger building. Owner-occupied one- and two-family homes are also covered by the state requirement, though the enforcement path differs.

Hotels, SROs & Shelters

Transient and single room occupancy buildings carry alarm obligations, and the operator's duty extends to guests and residents who have no control over the mechanical systems at all. Poisonings in these settings frequently trace to a pool heater, a rooftop boiler, or a generator, and the operator's inspection and service records are the evidence. A guest injured in a hotel has a claim against the operator and often against the maintenance contractor.

Restaurants & Commercial

New York requires operable carbon monoxide detecting devices in every building containing a restaurant and in commercial buildings, where the building has appliances, devices, or systems that may emit carbon monoxide or has an attached garage. Kitchen exposures involving ovens, broilers, and charbroilers with failed makeup air or a blocked flue are a recurring pattern, and they injure employees and customers together.

Public Housing

The same alarm and equipment duties apply, but the claim runs on a different calendar. An injury at a New York City Housing Authority development requires a notice of claim within 90 days and an action commenced within one year and 90 days under Public Housing Law § 157, which also requires 30 days to pass after the claim is presented. Our page on suing the New York City Housing Authority covers that sequence.

One point runs through all five. The duty to install is not satisfied by an alarm that was installed once and never touched again. An expired alarm, a unit past its stated life, or a device that was removed during a renovation and never replaced is a failure of the ongoing obligation rather than a technicality.

Where the Carbon Monoxide Alarm Requirement Actually Lives in New York Law

This matters more than it should, because the sections most commonly cited online for this duty are no longer the operative ones, and a claim pleaded on a repealed provision starts on the back foot.

Amanda's Law, the Statewide Floor

New York's residential carbon monoxide requirement took effect on February 22, 2010, through an amendment to Executive Law § 378 that is universally known as Amanda's Law. It was named for Amanda Hansen, a Buffalo teenager who died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a defective boiler during a sleepover in January 2009.^[1] The law requires operable carbon monoxide detectors in one- and two-family dwellings, condominium and cooperative units, and multiple dwellings, where the dwelling has appliances, devices, or systems that may emit carbon monoxide or has an attached garage, and it extended the requirement to restaurants and commercial buildings on the same condition.

The New York City Installation Requirement

Within the five boroughs, the installation requirement runs through § 908.7 of the New York City Building Code and the Department of Buildings rule implementing it. Alarms must be installed in dwelling units in buildings containing a fuel-burning appliance or an attached garage, positioned in the vicinity of sleeping areas so an alarm can wake the people it is protecting, and fuel-fired appliance rooms serving residential buildings carry their own detection requirements.

The Replacement Duty in Administrative Code Article 312

Article 312 of the Administrative Code carries the ongoing obligation. Owners must replace a carbon monoxide alarm when the time since installation exceeds the manufacturer's suggested useful life, and new alarms must comply with UL 2034 and be of a type that emits an audible notification at the end of that life.^[2] The parallel smoke alarm provisions require UL 217 compliance and a non-removable, non-replaceable battery lasting at least ten years.

The Sections That Were Repealed

Housing Maintenance Code §§ 27-2046.1 and 27-2046.2, which set out owner and occupant duties for carbon monoxide detecting devices in class A multiple dwellings, private dwellings, and class B multiple dwellings, were repealed by Local Law 157 of 2016 effective May 1, 2019. Those citations still appear across landlord guidance, tenant handouts, and law firm pages.

None of that changes whether a landlord had a duty. It changes which provision you cite when you plead the breach, and it is a detail worth getting right at the outset rather than in an amended complaint.

The Equipment Failures That Put Carbon Monoxide Into an Apartment

The alarm is the last line. The poisoning itself starts at a piece of equipment, and equipment leaves a service record.

Boilers and Furnaces

Cracked heat exchangers, failed combustion air supply, soot buildup from incomplete combustion, and units run past their service life. Building heating systems produce the largest exposures because they serve every apartment on a riser at once, which is why one failure often injures several households on the same night.

Water Heaters and Blocked or Shared Flues

Corroded vent connectors, disconnected flue pipes, birds' nests and debris in a chimney, and flues shared between appliances that were never designed to share one. A shared flue that backdrafts under negative building pressure is a recurring cause in older walk-up buildings.

Stoves and Ovens Used for Heat

When heat is not provided, tenants use what they have. A gas oven running with the door open in an unventilated apartment produces dangerous concentrations quickly, and the underlying failure is the heat, which is itself a code violation with a complaint history behind it.

Generators, Grills, and Portable Heaters

Generator exhaust drawn into a building during an outage, charcoal grills used indoors, and unvented kerosene heaters. In building-wide outages these exposures cluster, and the question becomes what the owner did about a generator placed near an intake.

Attached and Below-Grade Garages

Vehicle exhaust migrating into apartments above or beside a garage, particularly where a mechanical ventilation system failed or a fire door was propped.

Construction and Renovation Work

Gas-powered saws, compressors, and heaters run inside an occupied building during renovation, and temporary heating equipment set up without ventilation. Where a contractor created the condition, the contractor is a defendant alongside the owner.

Each of these has a paper trail: boiler inspection reports, heating system service invoices, chimney and flue inspection records, HPD heat complaints, Department of Buildings violations, and utility service tickets. Con Edison and National Grid also generate records when they respond to a gas or carbon monoxide call, and those records are dated.

Proving the Landlord Knew Before It Happened

Almost every serious carbon monoxide case has a warning in the file that nobody acted on.

The recurring ones: a prior alarm activation that was written off as a false alarm, a tenant complaint about headaches or a smell of exhaust, a boiler service report recommending repair or replacement that the owner declined to fund, a prior 311 or HPD heat complaint, a utility response to a reported odor, and an open Department of Buildings violation on the heating equipment. That 311 and HPD record set is the same one that decides a child lead poisoning claim against a New York City landlord.

Alongside those sit the records that show the alarm side of the failure: purchase and installation dates, the manufacturer's stated useful life, inspection certificates, and any renovation work order that would have taken a device off a wall.

The strongest version of this proof is a vendor's own written recommendation that the owner did not follow. It is a document created by the defendant's contractor establishing both the hazard and the owner's knowledge of it, and it is the reason these cases are worth investigating even when the immediate cause looks accidental.

What Carbon Monoxide Does to the Brain and the Heart

Carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin far more readily than oxygen does, which starves tissue of oxygen and damages the organs that tolerate it least. The brain and the heart are the two that matter most in a claim.

Acute symptoms that look like something else. Headache, dizziness, nausea, confusion, and weakness are routinely diagnosed as flu, migraine, or food poisoning, particularly in winter. A whole household with the same symptoms at the same time is the tell, and it is frequently missed.
Loss of consciousness and death. At higher concentrations, or during sleep, without any warning stage.
Cardiac injury. Myocardial injury and arrhythmia during the exposure, with elevated long-term cardiac risk afterward.
Delayed neurological sequelae. The consequence most often missed. Days to weeks after an exposure that appeared to resolve, a person develops memory impairment, personality change, difficulty concentrating, movement disorders, or depression. Someone discharged from an emergency department feeling fine can deteriorate later, and the connection is frequently never made.
Injury to a pregnancy. Fetal hemoglobin binds carbon monoxide even more avidly than adult hemoglobin, so exposure during pregnancy carries risks distinct from the mother's own.
Injury to children. Higher respiratory rates and smaller body mass mean children absorb more and show effects sooner.

Two practical points follow. Ask for a carboxyhemoglobin level, because it documents the exposure and it falls quickly with time and oxygen. And take any new cognitive or neurological symptom in the weeks after an exposure seriously, because delayed sequelae are real, they are well described in the literature, and an insurer will treat an undocumented gap as proof that nothing happened.

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Who Else Can Be Responsible Besides the Landlord

Carbon monoxide cases usually have more than one answerable party, and identifying all of them changes what the claim can reach.

The building owner and the managing agent carry the alarm and maintenance duties. The heating contractor or boiler service company answers for work performed and for recommendations documented and ignored. A general contractor or renovation crew answers where equipment was run in an occupied building or a vent was disconnected during work. An appliance or alarm manufacturer answers where the device itself was defective, which is a product claim with its own defendants in the distribution chain.

Utilities appear in some cases, though the analysis there is specific and depends on what was reported and what the response was. And where the building is public housing or another public entity, the entire claim shifts onto a 90-day notice schedule that has nothing to do with the three-year deadline everyone assumes applies.

The same vendor-record analysis drives a Legionnaires' disease claim from a building's cooling tower, where the missing document is a required inspection and disinfection log rather than a boiler service report.

Sorting that out early is what determines whether a serious poisoning claim sits across from a small landlord policy or reaches the coverage a catastrophic injury actually requires.

What a Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Claim Can Recover

New York does not cap compensatory damages, and in poisoning cases the largest element is frequently the one that was not obvious at discharge.

Medical expenses. Emergency care, hyperbaric oxygen therapy where indicated, hospitalization, neurological and cardiac follow-up, neuropsychological testing, and long-term treatment.
Lost income and earning capacity. Particularly where cognitive effects change what work is possible.
Pain and suffering. Covering the acute event, the fear during it, and the persistent effects afterward.
Cognitive rehabilitation and future care. The core of a delayed sequelae case, and the element most often left out of an early settlement offer.
Loss of enjoyment of life. The independence, memory, and daily function the exposure took.
Loss of consortium. A spouse's separate claim.
Wrongful death and survival damages. Where someone died, with the estate's pecuniary loss claim and a separate claim for conscious pain and suffering before death.

Be careful about early offers in this category. A carbon monoxide claim settled in the first weeks, before neuropsychological testing has been done, is frequently settled for the value of an emergency room visit when the real injury has not declared itself yet.

The Two Records a Carbon Monoxide Case Is Won On

A carbon monoxide case is won on two records that both have to be requested: the alarm history and the equipment service file. Neither arrives on its own, and both get harder to obtain as time passes.

An office in the courthouse district. We work from 305 Broadway in Lower Manhattan, minutes from the courts where these cases are tried.
The right provisions pleaded. The statewide requirement, the Building Code installation rule, and the Article 312 replacement duty, rather than sections repealed in 2019.
The equipment preserved. Written demand that the boiler, water heater, flue, and alarms be retained and not repaired or replaced before inspection.
Delayed effects documented. Neuropsychological evaluation and follow-up, because the injury that shows up three weeks later is the one that carries the claim.
Built for a courtroom, resolved at a table. Most cases settle. They settle for more when the other side believes the alternative is real.
A record across 40,000 cases. More than $100 million recovered, a 98% recovery rate, free consultations 24/7, and no fee unless we win.

New York Carbon Monoxide Poisoning FAQ

Does my landlord have to provide a carbon monoxide detector in New York?: Yes, where the building has a carbon monoxide source. Amanda's Law, effective February 22, 2010, requires operable carbon monoxide detectors in residential dwellings that contain appliances, devices, or systems that may emit carbon monoxide or that have an attached garage. Within New York City, § 908.7 of the Building Code governs installation in dwelling units and Administrative Code Article 312 requires owners to replace alarms at the end of the manufacturer's suggested useful life.
What if there was a detector but it was old or had no battery?: That is frequently the case rather than a defense to it. Administrative Code Article 312 requires owners to replace carbon monoxide alarms once the manufacturer's suggested useful life has elapsed, and new alarms must comply with UL 2034 and sound an audible end-of-life notification. An expired unit, a device removed during a renovation and never reinstalled, or an alarm that never sounded because it was past its life is a failure of an ongoing duty.
I felt fine after the exposure and now I have memory problems. Is that related?: It can be. Delayed neurological sequelae are a recognized feature of carbon monoxide poisoning, appearing days to weeks after an exposure that seemed resolved, and presenting as memory impairment, difficulty concentrating, personality change, movement problems, or depression. Get evaluated and ask about neuropsychological testing. An undocumented gap between the exposure and the symptoms is the first thing an insurer will use.
What evidence proves a carbon monoxide claim?: Two record sets. On the alarm side: purchase and installation dates, the manufacturer's stated useful life, inspection certificates, and renovation work orders. On the equipment side: boiler and heating service invoices, chimney and flue inspection reports, prior tenant complaints about headaches or odors, HPD heat complaints, Department of Buildings violations, and utility response records. A vendor's written repair recommendation the owner declined to fund is the strongest single document in this category.
Can a hotel guest or a restaurant customer bring a carbon monoxide claim?: Yes. New York's requirement extends to buildings containing restaurants and to commercial buildings that have carbon monoxide sources or attached garages, and hotel and single room occupancy operators owe duties to guests who have no control over the mechanical systems. Pool heaters, rooftop boilers, kitchen equipment with failed makeup air, and generators are the recurring sources in those settings.
How long do I have to file a carbon monoxide claim in New York?: Three years from the date of injury under CPLR § 214, and two years from the date of death for a wrongful death claim under EPTL § 5-4.1. If the building is a New York City Housing Authority development or another public entity, a notice of claim is required within 90 days and the action must be commenced within one year and 90 days. A child's claim is tolled during infancy under CPLR § 208.

Poisoned by Carbon Monoxide in a New York Building? The Service File Should Be Preserved Now.

Boilers get repaired and alarms get replaced within days of an incident, and the condition that caused it disappears with them.

People who rent an apartment in this state are entitled to working alarms and heating equipment that vents where it is supposed to vent. The part we worry about is the part tenants get talked out of: the headaches and the fog that are still there months after everyone else has moved on. Lawsuit Legal treats that as the injury it is, and we do not close a case around it.

We help tenants, hotel guests, restaurant workers, and families who lost someone to a preventable poisoning, with the legal help they need to hold a property owner answerable. Call (888) 713-6653 or use the form on this page. A review of your carbon monoxide exposure costs nothing.