Heat is set to be restored to all tenants of a White Rock, B.C. apartment building on Friday, a day after Global News reported some residents had gone without it for about a week in the midst of a snowstorm and freezing temperatures.
White Rock RCMP attended Fir Haus Apartments to conduct wellness checks on Friday.
There, building manager Dinesh Selvanathan said a plumber had visited Thursday, but needed to buy the parts required to fix the broken boiler. He said the boiler broke this week, and while “most” of the people in the building had heat, others had none or did not have “sufficient heat.”
“We didn’t know who has heat, who doesn’t have heat,” Selvanathan told Global News. “I spoke to a few people right now, they all said heat is there, it is working.”
The RCMP’s door-knocking on Friday, filmed by Global News, confirmed some people in the building still had heat, while others did not. A tenant who was accompanying the officer questioned why the building’s managers didn’t do the same.
“Right from the start, they should have gone to every door,” she said.
Selvanathan said Rockwell Management is “doing the best we can.”
“You understand we have a lot of older tenants in the building, like 80 plus. Even the slightest difference, decrease outside (they feel it),” he said. “We have done our best, whatever we can do to take care of this issue.”
In an emailed statement, Rockwell Management apologized “sincerely” to its tenants who “experienced the distress of being without heat during a cold snap.”
“We also want to thank the White Rock RCMP and Surrey-White Rock MLA, Trevor Halford, for attending the building and doing wellness checks on elderly tenants,” the email states.
“You upheld the values that define a great community. We are proud to be part of the community, and you have our commitment that we will learn from issues that arise and appropriately serve our tenants, whom we recognize are a vulnerable group due to their age.”
On Friday, tenant Ron Holmes said he’s had heating issues for a while — longer than a week — and has been warming his unit with his oven and space heaters. His electricity bill has gone up as a result, he added, and on a particularly frigid night he’s still “cold to the bone.”
“I’ve talked to these guys lots over the phone,” said Holmes, 69. “I’ve left messages. They promised great things. It never happened.”
On Thursday, 92-year-old tenant Odette Slezas said she, too, was using an oven to stay warm having been without since Jan. 12. Her daughter had flown in from Edmonton to help her out.
In another unit, 89-year-old Waltraud David was dealing not only without heat, but with flooding from a burst pipe. She’s currently using electric heaters and sleeping in the living room, since the bedroom is too cold.
Rockwell Management’s email states that two units in the building had a hot water pipe leak on Monday that was unrelated to the boiler problem, and heat needed to be turned off in those units only to safely resolve the issue.
On Tuesday, Rockwell Management said it discovered the boiler issue and called plumbing companies right away. The first available plumber could attend Wednesday, but the dump of snow prevented that from happening.
On Wednesday, the building manager reportedly confirmed 12 of 58 units had little to no heat. Rockwell Management said it distributed space heaters to units that were “entirely without heat” and it “didn’t have additional heaters.”
The heat was shut off Friday morning around 11 a.m. in order to fix the problem.
“We empathize that this action is harsh during a cold snap, but it is required to fix the issue, and we thank our tenants for their patience and understanding,” Rockwell Management said.
As of 5 p.m., Global News confirmed it had not be restored and a second pipe in the building had broken. RCMP were still at the building.