While living in a roach-infested apartment without central heating, she worked in a Chinatown clothing factory for much of her childhood.

In the most recent inspection, in December 1994, inspectors found roach-infested apartments, broken windows, a gas stove that did not work and a broken electrical fixture, among other things, city records show.

Sourette Alwysh, 34, was arrested for living with her 5-year-old son in a roach-infested apartment without electricity or running water.

The emaciated body of a child in a roach-infested apartment.

The two girls and one boy had been transferred to foster care last fall after child welfare workers found them living in the dirty, roach-infested apartment without any food.

There was no place to go but that filthy roach-infested apartment.

Then the family moved into a city shelter in Harlem, where she said they shared a tiny, roach-infested apartment.

She was desperate to move her two young children from their roach-infested apartment in south Yonkers.

None of the other children showed signs of abuse, officials said, despite having been forced to sleep together on the same mattress in a rat- and roach-infested apartment, where the refrigerator was padlocked.

Two small children who were left without supervision in a garbage-strewn and roach-infested apartment were found by the police after their father was arrested for selling crack to an undercover detective, the authorities said yesterday.