Pictures of homes interior at the link at bottom.

UPDATE: Woodbridge officials raid home, find 11 living illegally in bad conditions
By JOSHUA BURD • Staff Writer • October 2, 2008

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Buzz up! WOODBRIDGE —Township officials raided an Iselin home Thursday morning to find 11 occupants living inside illegally, including five who slept in an unfinished concrete basement.


The owner of the Oak Tree Road dwelling, Achla Jayaswal, faces $10,000 in fines from the township's housing and building departments and is a repeat offender, Mayor John McCormac said.

Officials issued her summonses Thursday for using the basement for sleeping purposes, having no smoke detectors and no egress from the basement, among other offenses.

McCormac called the case at the single-family Cape "the most egregious'' and "one of the worst violations we've had in recent memory.'' The town has cracked down on illegal housing and property maintenance offenses in the nearly two years since he took over as mayor.

"It's wrong on a lot of fronts, but it's just not safe for these people to be living there,'' he said, citing the potential fire hazard. "The bottom line is you can't sleep in the basement. There's only one entrance and exit.''

Jayaswal was cited in August 2007 for operating an illegal boarding house after housing officials noticed several individuals leaving the home, McCormac said. She complied, but is now facing the same charge again.

Inspectors this time were tipped off by a resident who complained, he said.

The township saw its first major case of illegal and overcrowded housing in November 2006, when it charged an Iselin man with having an unlawful basement apartment in his LaGuardia Avenue home. The apartment allegedly housed as many as 10 adults and drew suspicion after a complaint by another resident.

About a month later the Township Housing Bureau sent letters to the owners of some 50 properties identified as multiple-family homes. And in August 2007, officials said more than 220 violations were issued for illegal operation of boarding homes since the start of the year.

"People still think they can turn single-family houses into boarding homes," McCormac said. "And we've had it.''

Local business owners in Iselin have at times been skeptical of the crackdown and questioned how the buildings were chosen for inspection.

At Jayaswal's home, the occupants were simply told to leave the basement when officials first arrived at the house at 8:30 a.m. Thursday. McCormac said they had vacated the property when inspectors returned.

At about 10:30 a.m., an official notice was posted on the front door that the house was deemed an unsafe structure.

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