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In 2023, after several e-bike battery fires erupted inside New York City Housing Authority apartments, including a blaze that killed a 5-year-old girl and a 36-year-old woman , NYCHA considered banning the devices entirely from authority property.

But opposition emerged from those arguing that some NYCHA residents rely on e-bikes to make a living, so NYCHA compromised , restricting households to charging only one battery at a time, requiring that batteries be safety-certified and prohibiting the charging of batteries in front of any entrance door or anyplace that could block escape in the event of a fire.

The compromise appears to have made little difference.

Since the protocol started in 2024, the number of e-bike battery fires inside NYCHA properties has risen, with 13 that year increasing to 22 so far in 2026. All told there have been 53 battery fires in NYCHA since the rule went into effect.

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That includes Monday's deadly fire at the Patterson Houses in The Bronx that killed an 11-year-old boy and critically injured four family members, as well as a fire in August at the Albany Houses in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where an 18-year-old perished.

In both cases, the circumstances that triggered the deadly fires indicate potential violations of NYCHA's rule: the batteries were being charged in locations that fire officials said blocked escape — in the Bronx fire it was in the kitchen, blocking the way to the exit door; in the Brooklyn blaze it was next to the entry door.

And NYCHA requires that charging take place when at least one resident over 18 is awake. In the Bronx case, the fire erupted around one in the morning.

This week's fire in The Bronx raised questions about how much effort NYCHA makes to enforce the e-bike battery charging rule. Charging a battery in a manner that violates the charging rule is a violation of the household's lease. With 53 battery fires since the rule went into effect, NYCHA acknowledged to The City Reporter Thursday that there have been just three terminations of tenancy started for non-compliance with the policy.

It’s not clear how aggressively NYCHA monitors compliance. Compliance with the battery-charging rule is not included on NYCHA's annual apartment inspection form, nor is it part of the form staffers fill out when performing interim checks known as "Five Alive," a five-point inspection that occurs whenever an employee enters an apartment to perform maintenance or repairs.

Instead, NYCHA said, employees are instructed to verbally report non-compliant battery charging to a supervisor who will then discuss the violation and remedy with the tenant.

The Patterson Houses apartment where the battery exploded this week had received a "Five Alive" inspection seven months earlier in March. NYCHA said the staff did not observe improper battery charging during the inspection.