Con Edison restores heat to Upper West Side apartment building after turning it off weeks ago
NEW YORK -- Tenants of a building on the Upper West Side finally have their heat back after they were left in the cold for three weeks.
For three weeks, residents say their apartments on West 74th Street have felt like an ice chest, and their attempts to get answers from property management have elicited equally cold responses.
"I'll get an email response, and they'll say Michaela, we are trying, and then I say can you give me more information, and they just don't respond," tenant Michaela Hutton said.
Families say the saga began Jan. 4, when Con Edison alerted tenants crews would be turning off the heat so that they could repair a corroded gas pipe in front of the building. What tenants thought would be a quick fix quickly turned to weeks of trouble.
"We kept asking, nobody gave us any answers. What is going on, why is this happening?" resident Karin Deville said.
Watch Christina Fan's report
Con Edison says it finished its work Jan. 5, but as crews were about to turn on the building's gas, they noticed there were problems with the interior plumbing the property needed to fix.
When we called the building manager, he told us his plumber completed the necessary repairs quickly and it's the fault of the Department of Buildings and the utility company for taking so long to re-inspect.
Con Ed told us in part "the building manager must engage a licensed plumber who files documents with the NYC Department of Buildings."
"It's totally unacceptable, especially this time of year where we have such cold weather," Deville said.
Residents say the building has offered them all space heaters, but they're worried that will raise the electric bill or become a fire hazard.
"They gave me space heaters at first, and it melted my outlet. So they fixed that, but they gave me more space heaters and I'm concerned that it will cause a fire in the whole building," Hutton said.
Con Edison said Wednesday it got the signoff from the DOB to conduct a final inspection.
A resident told CBS New York Wednesday night that heat service has been restored.