LATEST: Just days after the elevator was supposedly fixed, it went out of service again.
13 Action News, for the fourth time, revisited the Park Avenue Apartments, where the elevator hasn’t worked consistently since July. And each time, management tells us, they’ll fix it.
Neighbors are fed up.
“You can’t fix an elevator within the first week?" asks Douglas Falk, a disabled tenant, who lives alone and walks with a cane. “There’s a problem. I hang onto a railing and come up, but if I got to hang onto any groceries or anything like that, doesn’t work.”
Like so many of the other disabled or elderly tenants, Falk worries: what if he has a life or death situation?
“If I have to call an ambulance, how are they going to get up here and take me down the steps? Because I’m not a small guy.”
13 Action News goes to the management office to get some answers, yet again. They will not answer our questions.
Falk says management has offered to move him to another building, but he isn’t convinced the same thing won’t happen there.
“I just want to get out of here,” Falk says.
Dan Wayne, who owns the property management company, told 13 Action News over the phone he hopes to have the elevator fixed by the end of Thursday. Wayne also sent his apologies to the tenants.
THIRD UPDATE: On Sept. 10, the elevator finally started working again.
The new sign at the Park Avenue Apartments elevator reads, "In service. It jumps on the third floor, don't be alarmed."
2ND UPDATE: 13 Action News called the city of Las Vegas Code Enforcement on Wednesday, Sept. 7. Officials did not have an open case at the apartments before the call. A supervisor will be inspecting the property Thursday.
The property management company told 13 Action News they will be sending another crew out Friday to fix the elevator.
If this happens to you, you can call Housing and Urban Development at 1-800-669-9777 or visit HUD.gov. You can also call the Silver State Fair Housing Council at 702-749-3288.
UPDATE: Last week, managers at Park Avenue Apartment complex told us the apartments would be fixed Tuesday.
However, when we went to check, the elevator was still broken.
A woman working inside the complex office refused to answer any questions. The signs posted at the elevator last week, saying "out of service," had been taken down.
Disabled veteran, Robert Myers, still isn't able to make it to his enzyme infusions.
"I don't know how many times they've said they'll get somebody to come in here and work on it, but I haven't seen anybody," says Myers.
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires buildings with three or more floors to have a working elevator, but those codes aren't always enforced.
ORIGINAL STORY
LAS VEGAS (KTNV) -- The elderly and disabled people in a downtown apartment complex are stuck in their own homes because an elevator has been broken most of the summer.
For Robert Myers, fixing the elevator in the Park Avenue Apartments in downtown Las Vegas could be the difference between life and death.
Myers needs enzyme infusions to battle a degenerative lung disease that requires him to be on oxygen around the clock.
With the only elevator in his complex out of service, he can't get downstairs to go to his appointments. He's missed seven infusions.
It's an impossible task for him to take the stairs with his oxygen tank, and as a result, he hasn't left his apartment in two months.
"I have been trapped in this apartment," Myers said.
He's not alone.
Michelle Schwartz has an elderly uncle who lives on the third floor. She's hauled his groceries up to him since the elevator's been broken.
"It's just ridiculous," she said. "I mean, we've got the best engineers in the country here in Las Vegas."
We went to the management office for an explanation. A staff member told us the machinery is so old, they've had trouble finding replacement parts.
A notice taped to the wall next to the elevator has the same explanation.
"They're being so inconsiderate to their other tenants in not finding some way to accommodate them," Schwartz said.
The office manager wouldn't go on camera. She instead told us to call the number of the complex owner in California. It went to voicemail and the message wasn't returned.
We've been told a repairman is coming Tuesday who should finally get things moving again.
