For the past 24 hours, the Nitor family has been calling a hotel room “home.”
“It’s gotten to a point where we’re here now, we’re spending over 100-and-something dollars a night to stay in a hotel,” said Sebastian Nitor.
The Nitors’ Verdun apartment has no water and has become unlivable.
Earlier this week, the fire department shut off the water to avoid further damage.
When the Nitor family returned to their apartment to collect some belongings on Wednesday, they found their kitchen floor flooded.
The Nitors’ water woes are in their ninth day.
Nitor claims the landlords are trying to do anything not to pay a plumber, including this: a hair dryer to thaw the pipes.
But the building’s owners tell a very different story.
Landlord Sang Si Kim says she warned the Nitor family, on Dec. 23, that a cold spell was coming and to keep the heat up and the water running.
Nitor says this isn’t true.
The Kims insist they spent the holidays calling plumbers.
“It is indeed my responsibility but I am not a plumber,” said landlord Min Ho Kim. “I need to have some kind of professional in order to come here and fix the problems.”
With the high demand during those frigid days, a plumber was not available until Wednesday.
“We called several other plumbers,” said Min Ho Kim. “We’ll pay you right now. We’ll pay you double, triple, whatever you want. Just come here, take a look.”
The Kims say they’re at their wit’s end, and say everything ends in an argument.
On Wednesday, the police were called to intervene in a quarrel.
“I’m just trying to fix the problem, please,” said Min Ho Kim.
The Kims have already been to the rental board, and the Nitors say that’s their next stop as well.