During the overnight shift, we get a call for a “woman sick” in Sunset Park.

It’s 1 a.m. and I’m eating gummy bears and reading a novel by the watery light of the dashboard. I feel like I’m on a red-eye flight.

I radio our response, then elbow Bronson. “Wake up.”

He mumbles something and snuggles closer to the driver’s side window. Smiles. I elbow him again. “Stop dreaming about Rachel.”

He opens his eyes and looks at me. The smile fades. “Ugh.”

His hair is sticking up and his eyes are bloodshot. “You’re no prize, either.” I point to the computer terminal mounted between our seats. “We got a call.”

He rubs his eyes and squints at the screen. “High blood pressure and vomiting.” He puts the truck into gear. “Great.”

We pull up to find a big moving van outside the three-story walkup. It’s being unloaded by a group of Mexicans. Boxes and mattresses sit on the sidewalk, in the cold. We go inside.

There are two apartments on the first floor, and there’s too much activity for 1 a.m.: women holding awake babies, men going in and out. Too many people. There are two apartments on the second floor as well, with a lot of activity in one of them – banging, music playing, people eating. The other one is quiet.

The door opens, and a woman wearing a gold cross on a chain steps into the hall. “Are you here for my mother?”

“Yes ma’am,” Bronson says. We step inside to find a clean, tidy apartment, the glossy walls covered with religious artifacts: pictures of Jesus, the Pope, crucifixes. I can hear people walking around upstairs on the third floor, more music playing, more banging.

On a velvet tufted couch sits a tiny elderly woman wrapped in a black shawl. There’s a plastic bowl beside her with tissues crumpled inside. I ask her what’s wrong.

She doesn’t answer. “She’s too upset to speak,” the woman says.

“When was the last time she vomited?”

“About two hours ago.”

I ask the usual array of gastrointestinal questions: What did she eat? Does she have any pain in her belly? Any bleeding? Any diarrhea?

“Tamales,” the woman answers. “And no, no, and no.”

I take her blood pressure – it’s high, 160 over 110. “Why is she too upset to speak?”

“The bathroom ceiling is collapsing!” the woman shouts. “But he won’t fix it ’cause he wants us to leave.”

“You mean the landlord?”

It turns out the building is rent stabilized and for the last few months he’s been trying to evict them in order to rent out rooms to illegal aliens. That explains all the noise and activity. Each five-room floor-through apartment meant for a single family now holds three, one family a room, sharing the kitchen and bathroom.

“So you’re moving out?” Bronson asks.

“No! We’re not paying rent!”

“How much is it?”

She stares at him. “Two hundred sixteen dollars and ninety-two cents.”

His eyes almost pop out of his face.

“Mama’s been here since 1968,” she explains.

“If every tenant pays $200, of course the landlord is going to play dirty,” Bronson says. “He’s got to pay the taxes, the gas. He probably takes in $1,500 per apartment this way.”

The woman gestures to the bathroom. “The whole ceiling’s about to come down!”

I ask if she’s called the Department of Housing Preservation & Development to register a complaint. “They’ll send an inspector over.”

She cuts me off: “Bah.”

I shrug. “Look. Whether or not he fixes your ceiling, you’re still going to have the noise. That’s not going to change. There’s no law that says a family can’t be three families large.”

She glares – not at me, but at the impossible situation.

“My advice?” Bronson says. “Find a new home somewhere else. Or else stay rent-free – or on principle, whatever.”

The woman sighs. “There’s noise at all hours of the night. Look!” She opens the hall door and we see people going up and down the stairs. “It’s like Grand Central!” She slams the door shut. “Mama’s very nervous. Her blood pressure’s going through the roof!”

“You’re a smart woman. Be practical.”

I interrupt them to bring the topic back to why we’re here. “Does she want to go to the hospital? There’s medication they can give her, to lower her blood pressure. Just until you figure out where to move.”

The old lady is already getting up off the sofa. She had been listening all along. With a grim set to her mouth, she takes her plastic bowl and tissues, her purse off the coat rack, and asks us if we’re ready to leave.

Ms. Klopsis is an emergency medical technician who works on an FDNY ambulance in Brooklyn. This column details her observations and experiences. Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of patients.