Paso Robles -- Some of the tenants who live in a Paso Robles apartment building are trapped in their homes.
The elevator at Hacienda Apartments on Tenth Street stopped working back in April and some seniors and disabled tenants who live on the 2nd and 3rd floors can't get out of the building.
The elevator hasn't worked in 70 days making more than a half dozen disabled and elderly people who live there are prisoners in their own homes, many of them can't even leave the floor they live on to go outside for fresh air or check their mail.
Cal-OSHA was not aware of this situation until Central Coast news contacted the agency. Cal-OSHA is now looking into the situation and says it is the responsibility of the building owner to fix and maintain the elevator.
Now there is good news and bad news for residents at Hacienda Del Norte Apartments in Paso Robles, the elevator was fixed. I was there when the first tenant, in a wheel chair, took a ride up to her apartment on the second floor, and it was more than a relief for these people.
Finally after nearly three months, the elevator was running earlier today and residents were thrilled. At the time, the owner of the apartments had the manager read me this statement. Shari Loyd, "we regret the problems this has caused to our residents. our on site management staff has been pro-active in attempting to assist tenants during this time. they have gone shopping and delivered groceries and medications to the tenants along with any other help they could give."
Now the statement goes on to say residents had been advised of the problem in early April and that the part to fix the elevator needed to be custom made, pushing back the time to get this issue fixed. But here's the bad news a resident called central coast news around 2pm to let us know the elevator had broken again., this time trapping an EMT and a resident.
We spoke to the apartment manager again today and she confirmed the information and said she didn't know if it is now fixed or not and is waiting for an inspection. The city has filed report to the department of justice, they're investigating. If any ADA compliance regulations were broken-- the owner can face finds up to 50-thousand dollars per violation.
