DETROIT – Another day marked off the calendar means another day without heat for the people living inside the Alden Towers on Detroit’s east side. The city issued a correction order to the apartment last week, but the heat still was not back on Tuesday.
The apartment says the issue is due to a failing boiler.
Many desperate residents are turning to dangerous solutions.
“This is typically what I do when I wake up in the morning, just come over here and turn it on,” Alden Towers resident Johnel Watkins said.
Watkins starts his days by cranking on the oven and setting it to 500 degrees.
His neighbors are switching on the stovetop.
“That also brings a problem where my power cuts off a lot, so I had to go to the office to find where the breakers are, and I have to like manually reset everything for my apartment,” resident George Ford said.
“My husband is sick,” another resident said. “I don’t know if he has pneumonia, but I can’t even really wash my hair, you know, to go to work and everything because it’s so cold in there, I don’t wanna catch a cold.”
Local 4 spoke to a total of 11 Alden Towers residents.
Six said they haven’t had heat at all this season.
Five say the heat came on intermittently until Nov. 14.
That’s when residents say it shut off completely.
The cost of keeping warm is creeping up.
Watkins says his utility bill went up $100 last month, and resident Brendon Turner said his went up $300.
With the rising costs, residents began reaching out to management for help.
An email sent to tenants on Nov. 25 says the apartment maintenance team “is actively working to diagnose and resolve the problem as quickly as possible.”
Local 4 tried to get some answers, too.
“People here don’t have heat. I am wondering, as the community manager, what you have to say about that?” Local 4 asked the Alden Towers community manager.
“I would have to ask you to move, for the privacy of my residents, ask you to move to the public right away,” the manager said.
Tenants are posting notes on the walls with the city’s contact information.
The city’s Buildings, Safety Engineering, and Environmental Department issued a statement on Tuesday (Dec. 9).
“We have been aware of isolated heat complaints in one of the towers at Alden Towers, but were unaware of it being a widespread issue until just recently.
Last week, we wrote an emergency correction order for the landlord to address the issues.
As of Monday, the issue still had not been fixed. This is unacceptable.
Yesterday, we issued tickets to the owner in the amount of $2,000, and will continue to write tickets daily until the issue is addressed and tenants have reliable heat.
We also working with the Law Department on potential legal action against the owner of the building.”
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“Treat us right. Otherwise, you lose us,” Ford said.
We reached out to the building owner multiple times about possible rent reimbursement for tenants.
“Alden Towers is currently experiencing heating disruptions due to a failed boiler and circulation pump.
Since 2020, ownership has invested significantly in modernizing the building’s infrastructure.
A custom replacement circulation pump is already on order and is scheduled for delivery and installation in mid-January.
In the meantime, ownership has authorized the rapid deployment and installation of a temporary boiler to restore heat as quickly as possible.
Supplemental heating is also available upon request, and our property management team is working closely with both the city and mechanical specialists to stabilize heating throughout the building as quickly as possible.”
Statement from the owner of the building