People with reduced mobility have been stuck inside their homes for several days due to a broken elevator at an apartment building in NDG.
One of the elevators at the six-storey, city-run building at 3510 Benny Ave. in NDG stopped working last month. This week, the other broke down.
“It took so long with the first one and it wasn't until people really made a fuss with the city and everywhere that anything was done,” said resident Joan Poirier.
That has left many unable to leave their homes to pick up groceries or other essentials, and the problem won’t be solved until Monday at the earliest.
“I could go down okay, but I could not go up five flights of stairs,” said resident Joyce Leache. Without a working elevator, she hasn't been able to leave the apartment.
Cynthia Frascarelli, the director of Benny Farm, said technicians had started working on the elevators, but the problem is complex.
“It's the oil inside the muffler that went out of the cylinder and it went down the cage of the elevator, so this is a problem,” she said.
While residents wait for elevators to be fixed, management has offered to put people up in hotels and has also brought in other services to make it easier.
“We have a 24-hour security guard to go and bring things down and up the stairs, to bring the groceries,” said Frascarelli.
Technicians are returning to repair the elevators on Monday, but due to the complexity of the job, it could take a few more days before at least one is up and running.
