Dozens of Euclid apartment tenants say they’ve been left without heat for months

EUCLID, Ohio (WOIO) - Dozens of residents at a local apartment building say they’re sick of being ignored.

They claim they haven’t had heat since before that nasty blizzard, and with more bitter cold on the way, they’re worried.

With no where else to turn, they contacted the 19 Troubleshooters.

“I am done,” said Norma Smith, an apartment tenant at Riviera Apartments. “And I shouldn’t have to move because you’ve been taking my money for the last four years. So don’t ask me to move to better, I had better before Elon took over this property.”

Tenants at the Riviera Apartments in Euclid are fed up.

Dozens of residents say it has been months since they’ve had working heat.

For Aminata Sangare, this is extra concerning. She has four kids at home.

Most nights, it’s downright cold in their apartment, so she has to resort to unsafe ways to stay warm.

“I bought two different space heaters and that was not enough I have to put oven on,” said Sangare. “And that’s dangerous for my kid.”

So dangerous, the space heaters set her smoke alarms off. It burned the electric chords of the heaters and two of her vacuums.

That’s when Sangare decided enough was enough and contacted the city of Euclid to begin the process of putting her money into escrow.

She sent a letter to her property management, formally requesting the heat be fixed, but never heard back. So we tried, instead.

The front office wouldn’t speak with us, so we tried the corporate office, instead.

Tenants at the Riviera Apartments say so will they until they get what they’re paying for.

While we never heard back from the new property managers, Smith said she was contacted by them hours after we called.

She says they offered $100 off her rent, but she says that’s not enough, given the situation. According to Smith, the property management says they hope to have the heat fixed within a week.

19 News received the following statement four days after the airing of our report:

The Ownership and Management of Riviera Apartments has contracted and had a new boiler system installed in mid- January.  The new system is sized appropriately to allow for optimum temperature levels.  Any time a new full system is installed there are always adjustments that need to be made from a mechanical standpoint.   All resident complaints have been responded to personally and all individual concerns are being addressed and no one is without a source of heat.

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