Residents at an independent senior living complex in Edmond said they’re struggling to stay cool, going weeks without air conditioning.
Renee Bernard, a pastor at the Edmond Church of God, is fed up.
“We’ve been dealing with it since June the 8th,” Bernard said.
Window units were installed at the Creekside Village Apartments where the HVAC went out in early June.
“There’s 10 on this property, there’s (sic) 84 apartments,” Bernard said. “Percentage-wise, that’s over 10 percent.”
Bernard is now doing her own investigation into the problem.
One of Bernard’s parishioners told her that they were struggling with the conditions at Creekside, unable to get a timely repair.
Some residents decided to keep their lights off.
Resident Karen Dwyer said she always sleeps in the chair in her living room. Even if she wanted to sleep in her bedroom, she said she couldn’t because of the heat.
“It’s too damn hot in there,” Dwyer said.
Dwyer has a window unit running in her living room.
Bernard looked up the model of the air conditioning unit. It’s designed to cool 150 square feet. A typical apartment at Creekside, however, ranges between 800 to 1,000 square feet.
The temperature was almost 80 degrees inside Dwyer’s apartment.
“Which her daughter-in-law feels like this is pretty warm,” Bernard said.
“I have to run my fan all the time to keep it cooler in here,” Dwyer said.
Bernard is trying to help the senior citizens at Creekside. It’s an income and age-restricted complex.
Fran Hastings said she has had issues with both her heating and cooling at Creekside for the past 18 months. Most recently, she lost her air conditioning.
“They’ve all been pretty good about getting mine fixed,” Hastings said. “But the heat, I was getting kind of perturbed about that. But they did bring the window unit.”
Hastings said the window unit was enough to cool her apartment.
“It was approximately three weeks that I was without a good air conditioner,” Hastings said.
The residents take care of each other.
“I complain for Karen (Dwyer) all the time because, bless her heart, she is just so hot,” Hastings said.
Penny Brownlow, another resident, said she can’t use even the window unit because of her asthma and allergies. Her HVAC has been out for a month.
“I’m just tired of fighting,” Brownlow said.
Brownlow was at the hospital this week for dehydration. Her normal voice has not returned.
“If I didn’t have Renee fighting for me, I don’t know what I would do because they ignore people like us,” Brownlow said.
Brownlow is spending her days in her bedroom where Bernard installed a filtered standing air conditioning unit.
“She is renting an entire apartment unit but only gets to use one-fourth of it and has to pay full rent,” Bernard said.
News 9 reached out to Creekside Village Apartments for a comment but have not received a response.
