NYC ‘Heat Season’ starts Sunday. Here’s what renters need to know.

The days are shorter, the weather’s colder and the pumpkin spice is flowing.

It’s fall. And for millions of New Yorkers, that means it’s heat season — an eight-month span where the city requires landlords to keep their apartments warm.

Heat season officially begins on Sunday and lasts until May 31. During that span, whenever the outdoor temperature drops below 55 degrees, property owners must turn on the heat and keep indoor temperatures at 68 degrees or higher between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., and at 62 degrees or higher at night.

Here’s what New Yorkers need to know when the temperatures drop.

What should I do if it’s cold in my apartment?

First off, let the landlord know by giving them a call or by sending a text or an email to tell them it’s too cold in the apartment.

Rasheed Barnes owns a two-unit building in the Bronx’s University Heights neighborhood. He said he communicates regularly with his tenants about the heat and responds quickly.

“If there’s a problem, they usually text me,” he said. “One had newborns so their need for heat is a little different.”

But not every landlord is responsive or easy to reach. Large companies with big portfolios may not even let you speak with an actual person.

In those cases, it’s still a good idea to inform the landlord or management company and document the correspondence in case the heat outage becomes a chronic problem that requires legal intervention, said Adam Meyers, the head of litigation at the tenants’ rights group Communities Resist.

“It’s helpful to make a record of how you communicated,” Meyers said. “That puts the landlord on notice of the problem in case you’re eventually going to seek additional relief in court.”

But many tenants might feel uncomfortable notifying the owner if they owe rent money, fear retaliation or are concerned about their immigration status.

If that’s the case, or if the landlord doesn’t immediately respond or attempt to resolve the heat outage, tenants should…