Pauline Scott once thought she had won the apartment “lottery” with her “idyllic” Metrotown rental on the 12th floor.
Now she feels she has won a booby prize due to ongoing maintenance issues that have left her feeling "trapped."
That’s because both of the building’s elevators have been breaking down at the same time, leaving a woman with complex medical issues often unable to get to needed health-care appointments.
Things turned sour in 2018 when construction on new residential towers began next door.
“Imagine, construction on four sides of your home over the course of four years and sometimes all at once, and it isn't finished yet,” said Scott. “I got a big box of ear plugs and sound-muffling industrial-level ear protection. I no longer could hear the radio during the day over the noise.”
But that was just the beginning.
“For me, the worst of this is how often our elevators have been out, sometimes we've been down to 1 elevator for up to 3 months,” Scott said. “And as a result then the other elevator would go down and we'd have no elevators. Luckily, in the past having no elevators was usually, mercifully brief. Lately, however, it has been often that we've had no elevators. Today was the last straw.”
Scott’s son was visiting from back east for the first time since 2019. But when it came time to go with him to the airport to say goodbye, both elevators were down – again – and she couldn’t do that many flights of stairs and so a relative had to take him.
Scott was heartbroken that she couldn’t even take part in a time-honoured ritual.
“I would never be able to make it back to my apartment again, even if I could go down the stairs,” she said. “Coming back up would be impossible.”
But the situation is worse due to the other complications of not having a working elevator.
“Over the last 2-3 weeks of the repeated double elevator outages I have put off getting x-rays and blood work, I've put off using the laundry facilities in the basement because it didn't seem that they had this ongoing double elevator problem fixed,” Scott said. “Late last week, I was assured that they'd finally got the problem fixed. Sigh. Apparently not. So the terrifying thing is, in a building with this many floors, what would happen if someone needed an ambulance? How can mothers with small children manage all these stairs with their kids? How can little kids get to school? How can they get home? How can people get to work? How will people get to urgent medical appointments - ones they may have waited for, for months? I get grocery deliveries and many people depend on restaurant food deliveries - how will that happen if there is no elevator? If there is a service emergency such as broken pipes or electrical failures, who is going to lug the equipment, tools and get the workers up these stairs to fix things in our apartments? The list goes on.”
The NOW has reached out to building management but has not heard back yet with a comment. This story will be updated if comment is received.
“I think some accountability is required,” Scott said. “I think some consequences for the owners are required and surely some important safety regulation is being violated now. The big final insult is, though, is having our rents raised recently too. Really?”
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
