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My gosh -- that's horrible! I am so sorry to hear that about your former roommate. I hope she's doing better these days. I plan on showing this thread to my brother and hope it serves as some sort of deterrent. Guess we'll see. Thank you.

one of my former roommates fell off the ladder while going up to the roof (in JC) a few years back...she fell FIVE stories to the ground...lost one eye and did extensive damage to her body (shattered hip/knee) - it's amazing she lived. anyway, I would NEVER recommend climbing a fire escape. go to the park.

My stepson likes to do the same thing. I talked to my upstairs neighbor about it, and since he is a friend of ours, he said he doesn't mind at all. I don't let him go all of the way on top of the roof, but he is allowed to climb up to the top fire escape and chill. I also saw my next door neighbor sunny himself on his fire escape one day. Personally, I think it's fine.

They just have to climb carefully. It's no worse than climbing a tall tree, IMHO.

If in your gut you feel it's wrong/unsafe, it probably is.

Wow, Trespassing comes to mind, can get arrested... Scare the hell of your neighbors, who may call the cops, whom may think he's breaking in, waste their time( cops) will false alarm etc. My opinion advise him not good idea, he may have good attentions, may want to chill out etc. but results may lead to problems for him and others.. Best of Luck

Every few weeks, my younger brother likes to make his way out my kitchen window, climb up the fire escape and "just chill" for an hour or two on my building's flat rooftop.

I am guessing my landlord wouldn't be too thrilled if he were aware of this. And I'm a bit concerned my brother may freak out the people who live on the top floor of my building if they see him climbing past their window on the fire escape.

While he does this in the back of the building and he can't be seen from the street, it's a rickety old fire escape and I worry about his safety (though he insists it's safe up there).

I guess my questions are:

Does Jersey City have laws against using fire escapes for anything other than emergency purposes? And if so, would they ever attempt to enforce them? Same goes for hanging out on flat rooftops that are only accessible via fire escapes?

I am guessing we'd only have trouble if another tenant phoned the police or my landlord, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask if any of you JCListers out there were aware of possible fines (or anything else for that matter) we could be subject to.

Thanks in advance for your help.