Vancouver high-rise tenants furious both elevators broken during heat wave

Some tenants in a Vancouver rental building say they were forced to walk up and down as many as 10 flights of stairs several times per day during the recent heat wave.

“I have a senior dog and an infant under one. It’s been really difficult getting out,” said Klara Chen, who lives on the top floor of the Olympic Village high-rise.

“I can’t even get out with both of them at the same time.”

She lives at The Wilkinson, a ten-storey tower on Cook Street.

Both of the building’s elevators were completely out of service over the holiday weekend, with only one working intermittently for a few days before that.

Holly Keenan lives on the ninth floor with her husband who uses a wheelchair and hasn’t been able to leave home at all.

“He does feel like a prisoner. It’s been tempting to just go to a hotel at this point. But that’s going to be really pricey,” she said.

Although the problem came to a head last week, residents say the one-year-old building has been plagued by elevator issues for a long time.

“Over the last several months, probably beginning around February or January, the one on the right has only been intermittently working,” Chen said.

Tenants who spoke to CTV News say they don’t feel like the management company has made fixing the original malfunctioning elevator a priority and wonder if they’d be in this position if it had.

“It’s hard to say if it’s even been a priority because we’ve received zero communication at all for the past six months about that elevator,” said Keenan. “Repeated calls and texts to the property manager and landlord have just gone unanswered.”

Cressey Development Group, which manages the building, declined an interview request but a company representative said it has been working diligently to get the elevators operational.

Still, because the issues seem to be chronic, tenants say even when the elevators appear to be working normally they don’t feel safe.

“I myself have been stuck in that elevator. Who knows how long that’s going to occur?” said tenth-floor resident Tasha Davidson. “Are they safe? Are they now reliable? Is this something that’s going to happen again in two weeks' time?”

As of Tuesday, one of the elevators was again working intermittently – while the other remained completely out of service.