Haverhill apartment residents without heat, hot water for more than a week
HAVERHILL - Residents at the Pine Brook Place apartment complex in Haverhill have been without heat and hot water since Sunday, November 27, they tell WBZ.
The complex has several buildings, but residents at 52 Brook Street are the ones impacted. The building has 24 units inside.
"We are all dealing with it," said resident Stanley Tirelus. "There's a lot of kids in the building, elderly people," he explained.
Tirelus has been going to the gym before work every day to shower. Resident Everett Leonard tells WBZ he's been heating water on the stove to shower with. "Not only is it a major inconvenience but you know, being in the middle of wintertime, where temperatures can fall around 30 degrees, it gets uncomfortable," Tirelus told WBZ.
Residents say it took days before management told them what was going on. Tirelus went so far as to call the City Inspectional Services Department when he wasn't getting answers from the property managers.
According to a memo sent to residents on December 2nd, the boiler in the building is broken. Repairs started on Monday, December 5, are "extensive," and will take "a couple days to complete," the memo says. It does not give a deadline for when the boiler will be fixed.
In the meantime, Tirelus has two space heaters the complex provided him to heat his home. While they get the job done, he says, they add insult to injury by using up electricity for which residents have to pay. "We pay for our own electric, so that's another inconvenience because all the rates just went up. Adding all the space heaters, running them consistently every day, that's another expense coming out of our pocket, and we are not being compensated for anything," he explained.
Tirelus says occasionally a maintenance worker will reset the boiler, which will provide warm water - but no heat - to residents periodically for no more than an hour's time.
WBZ reached the property manager on the phone Tuesday afternoon. When asked about the situation, she said she had "no comment" and hung up the phone. We also reached out via phone, voicemail, and email to Dolben, the Massachusetts company that manages the complex. As of late Tuesday night, requests for comment went unanswered.
While residents are relieved the boiler is getting fixed, they hope the property managers will be more forthcoming if issues arise in the future, so they are not left in the cold literally and in the dark figuratively.