PORTLAND, Oregon — Dozens of residents at a Southeast Portland apartment complex are outraged that they haven’t been able to use their building’s elevator after a fire broke out last week. In some cases, residents haven’t been able to leave their home in days.
The fire started on Oct. 9 at the Sellwood Center Apartments. Thankfully, according to residents, nobody was hurt. Both elevators were flooded by water after sprinklers turned on in response to the fire, which was on the eighth floor of the building.
Now, many of the older residents who can’t get around very easily have been stuck inside for the last week — and will be until the elevators are fixed.
The only way up or down has been the stairs, and many who live at the low-income apartment complex are senior citizens who depend on working elevators.
“They are not working, people have to come down the stairwells to get out and we have people on the eighth floor who are in electric wheelchairs,” said resident Amy Smith.
Smith also said this about what lead to the elevators not working: “The sprinkler system went haywire and there was flooding water that shorted the elevators.”
Now a sign has been posted saying that the elevators are out of order and a company named Otis is working to get parts, but nobody who lives there has any idea when those parts will arrive.
“It’s extremely frustrating, people are doing things like throwing their garbage outside of their balconies instead of bringing it outside to the garbage dump area,” Smith said.
Smith said that there has been one resident who’s been going door to door checking up on people, making sure they have everything they need.
Managers posted a letter outside the building saying that they are actively working with the company to get the elevators back and working as soon as possible.
KGW reached out to the managers who run the apartment complex. They did not return our phone calls.