MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Memphis apartment complex that houses the elderly, disabled, and handicapped was without heat, hot water or stoves Saturday as temperatures dipped into the 30s.
Tenants in the Madison Tower apartment building near downtown say management isn’t fixing several significant issues, and it’s a struggle to keep warm.
Some tenants have been sitting in their cars to warm up, and they don’t have any hot water, either.
“The air conditioner hasn’t been working. There’s no heat. There’s no hot water,” resident Henry Taylor said.
Another resident said none of the stoves in the building are working. Some say the conditions are making them sick.
Tenants say they have complained to management, saying they’ve been cold, unable to shower and even cook without a working stove.
They say they were told management was taking care of it, but that was a week ago.
“Anything happens, we’re kind of on our own,” Taylor said.
“To ignore the situation, that’s disrespectful to me,” said a resident who didn’t want to be named. “It shows that you don’t care.”
WREG called the management office, but the voicemail stated they were not open on weekends.
While near the building, we saw a woman sitting in her car.
“Sometimes I just come out to my car and turn the heat on to keep warm,” she said.
The woman was one of many here on dialysis. She says she’s tired of not feeling well in a place she calls home.
“Coming off of dialysis you’re cold,” she said. “And you can’t boil any water. It just seems like they don’t even care.”
Tenants say someone came to check on the circuits, but told them they didn’t see anything wrong.
In the meantime, they’ve been patiently waiting, forced to eat cold foods, take cold showers and bundle up as temperatures drop.
but they say their patience has run out and they need something to be done, right now.
“There’s something going on. They need to be here 24-7 working on it, finding out what the problem is,” a resident said.
A lot of people have also been sleeping with their apartment doors open, because it’s a bit warmer in the hallway.
Most tenants here are afraid that they’ll have to live with all of these problems until after Veterans Day.
Madison Tower was previously owned by Global Ministries Foundation. In September, WREG reported that a new company, the Millennia Group, was buying the property along with others and putting money into renovations.
