EVERETT – Tenants inside a 4-story downtown Everett apartment complex are enduring nearly three months without elevator service, complicating egress from the building for several residents with mobility issues.
Residents at Artspace Everett Lofts, 2917 Hoyt Avenue, noticed the elevator stopped working on May 20. The building management, Indigo Real Estate based in Renton, Wash., announced last week that repair plans were finally scheduled to start yesterday. However, Indigo Real Estate indicates the repairs could take two weeks or more to complete.
The nearly three-month saga has been complicated by a necessary replacement part in the broken elevator that is no longer being manufactured or available as a spare part.
In a statement to the EverettPost.com, Indigo Real Estate advised, “Because the existing elevator machine and door operators are obsolete, restoring service requires replacement of the machine and specialized components rather than routine repair.”
EverettPost.com stopped by the 40-unit complex yesterday to see if repair crews were on site to begin the long-awaited work but there appeared to be no such workers on site or any signs indicating repair had commenced at 4 p.m. Calls for confirmation with Indigo haven’t been returned.
For several weeks, tenants with mobility issues were effectively trapped in their apartment or on their respective floor because they weren’t able to navigate the stairs conventionally, according to tenant Rachel Gordon, who tells the EverettPost.com, “A lot of disabled people in this building are struggling.”
In the written statement from Indigo, the management company said, “We recognize that an elevator outage of this duration is deeply disruptive and is not the experience we want for residents, particularly those with mobility limitations.”
Regarding the elevator repair timeline, Indigo says “we are continuing to press” for the service restoration, “as quickly as possible.”
One 80-year-old tenant, who couldn’t navigate the stairs in the complex, ended up calling the Everett Fire Department to be carried down the stairs she could leave the building to get to the airport for a previously planned trip, according to Gordon.
Manager of Major League Pizza, Tim Knutson, says one of his customers who requires a mobility scooter to move, used to ride between the apartment and the pizza restaurant at 2811 Colby Avenue—a three block cruise on the scooter–to dine in but is now ordering delivery because of the inability to descend four flights of stairs.
Attending medical appointments for other tenants with mobility issues has also been a problem, says Gordon, an Army and Army Reserve veteran on a disability.
Gordon says the property management has been working directly with residents who need assistance during the elevator outage with regular activities like groceries, package and mail delivery, medication pick-up and trash removal, although she says some of these things could have been done more quickly for tenants. “My floor has a lot more disabled people I think,” Gordon shares, “so we have like six apartments that have trash just sitting in hallway. But they did get it eventually.” The building’s on-site management office is closed on Saturdays and Sundays
Gordon says one resident has already moved out of the building as a result of the elevator accessibility issues, finding a new place to live. Indigo Real Estate responded to inquiries about tenants saying, “We cannot discuss individual residents’ communications or circumstances.”
The frustration’s been impossible to ignore, according to Gordon, who says the “elevator was working perfectly fine. Until then, it had never gone down, not once” during the three year’s she’s lived there. Construction on the Artspace Everett Lofts was completed in 2010. Indigo did not respond to inquiries about the elevator’s life span or if it was original equipment to the building after 16 years. Elevator sales and service companies cite that manufacturers design most commercial elevators to handle about 20 to 25 years of service under standard conditions. When traffic levels are higher than average, this website underscores, that time frame often shrinks.
Early on during the elevator outage she says status updates would be posted for tenants to read about the broken elevator. “I have pictures of all the different notes and stuff,” Gordon recounts about this disruption. “Elevator is turned off or not working because of safety issues and we’re working as fast as we can.” Then after a few weeks, a new message about the elevator, she recalls, said, “‘We’re still working on it with no time frame and be patient’, you know that kind of thing.”
After several weeks of vague answers about the elevator’s future, one resident with a law degree, according to Gordon, started a petition for all the tenants to sign. “He started a petition, we all signed it, just to find out what was going on.”
And that petition she says, “got a blast email sent out with the letter from Otis (elevator service company), saying that there was a part that was about to be discontinued”, citing the part availability problem. That was around July 15th she states.
Gordon has personally struggled descending the stairs during the lengthy elevator outage because of a bulging disc and sciatica affliction. “I have a bulging disc and a herniated disc which causes sciatica all down my leg which my right leg is numb. And it was mostly under control before the elevator went down.”
One day on the stairs, “Right after the elevator went down,” Gordon begins, “I had to take my cat to the vet and I fell down the stairs. I just sat on the stairs for like 20 minutes and played on my phone while the pain went away. And its been kind of like that with the stairs,” being the only option, Gordon laments, “and my back pain’s been getting worse.”
The back pain’s impacting her sleep, “Every two hours I wake up because I haven’t gotten good sleep in two months”, she remarks, A doctor prescribed pain relievers for the back pain and sciatica she’s currently suffering, “They’re getting me lidocaine patches and I have this gel that’s like a pain reliever that helps the back pain,” she reveals while adding, “But I’m in recovery. I’m 13 years sober. So, I can’t take painkillers like opiate kind.”
At this point, even with a potential light at the end of this to this un-expected and grueling 11-week tunnel, Gordon thinks this should have been fixed faster. “Could this have been avoided?”, she asks of the protracted outage. “It sounds like they’re making excuses more than they’re giving information.”