Hot water restored after two months

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Hot water has been restored to residents at Anderson Oaks apartments in northwest Austin.

Tenants in building seven at the complex had not had hot water for more than two months. A contracted plumbing company worked to fix the problem Thursday.

The problem started before Thanksgiving. Spencer Rodriguez and her fiancé Derrick Hopkins noticed their hot water--just wasn't hot.

Rodriguez says it was a challenge, and found herself filling pots several times a day to boil water.

"My hot water will literally run for 20 minutes and nothing will change," said Rodriguez as she stood at her kitchen sink Thursday morning.

"Normally you would turn it left to get it hot, but, that's ice cold," said Hopkins, turning the faucet in the bathtub.

The two have received letters periodically over the past couple of months from property management, Arbor Property Management, about the issue and what they were doing to try and fix the problem.

One notice came Wednesday, January 9. That happened to be the same day code compliance got involved.      

"We've had an investigator on property working with the property manager to determine if things are moving forward," said Melissa Martinez, with Austin Code Compliance.

KXAN checked, and a contracted plumbing company was working on a line Thursday. They found a blockage in the line that delivers hot water from the complex's boiler system to building seven.

Property managers say that should fix the problem. As of Thursday night, tenants in building seven did once again have hot water.

But why did it take two months?

"It's reasonable to expect that there might be road blocks in ordering parts and so forth, but from November to January--that is a long time," said Martinez.

KXAN asked the property manager who was on site at Anderson Oaks apartments Thursday about the problems they ran into over the past couple of months,  but we were given no answers.

Management later told KXAN of Anderson Oaks, "All buildings are operational and up to code. They've been working on this continually for the past month. They did have 4 units open that residents could use to shower, etc."

But, no answers for Rodriguez, Hopkins and other residents--for two months--boiled down to some real inconveniences, especially around the holidays.

"We couldn't even spend them at home," said Rodriguez, "Because we didn't have hot water. We couldn't cook, we couldn't clean, I couldn't have company over--couldn't shower or do anything without hot water."

Martinez says as long as management is moving toward a solution, no further investigation will take place.

KXAN asked code compliance to tell us exactly what steps a tenant should take when they realize there is a problem, but management won't seem to get it fixed. Martinez says if they'd known about the problems at Anderson Oaks sooner, solutions would have come quicker.

And she says any tenants who have concerns about the safety of the property where they're living should call 311, the city's customer call center.